


three hundred and fifty three

by argenttmccall



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (at least in terms of everyone who isn't Mike and Eleven), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dealing With Trauma, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Multi, POV Alternating, Picks up right after El closes the gate, Post-Season/Series 02, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 08:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12577892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argenttmccall/pseuds/argenttmccall
Summary: "Still, I'd let things cool off for a while if I were you.""How long is a while?""Want to be safe, I give it a year."or(almost) a year's worth of getting used to the New Normal. it takes them a while, but they'll get there.





	1. day one

_day one_

Hopper and Eleven are the last ones to get back to the Byers house, the first hints of dawn appearing in the sky. He carries El into the house, fighting to get through the sudden sea of worried and clamoring teenagers that surround him.

“If any of you idiots wake her up, I’ll kill you,” he hisses through clenched teeth, giving them his deadliest glare.

Mike still looks like he’s about to retort, when El gives a little pained moan and he switches gears to go clear the sofa of any debris and look for the warmest blanket he can find for her. Hopper lays her down gently on the couch and Mike tucks the blanket around her as Joyce ushers everyone else into the kitchen.

The house is a fucking disaster; there’s glass and blood everywhere and Will’s drawings of the vines still up on the walls. There’s a rotten smell coming from the fridge that Hopper doesn’t even want to think about as he pulls out a cigarette and lights it quickly, praying that his hands don’t shake in front of everyone.

“How’re you feeling, Will?” he asks the kid gruffly. Will’s sitting on his mother’s lap, looking half a shade away from a corpse. But the light is back in his eyes, and he gives a small nod and smile in response. Joyce just buries her face in Will’s hair and holds him tightly, and Hopper squeezes her shoulder before taking stock of the rest of their little monster hunting party.

Dustin, Lucas, and that new girl, Max, are slumped against each other, the energy they’d had earlier in the night gone. For some fucking reason, they’re wearing some sort of protective gear, and Hopper has a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with the mini Demogorgons taking flight from the lab. Nancy and Jonathan both have blankets thrown across their shoulders, and Steve…

“Jesus Christ, kid, what the hell happened to you?”

“Long story,” Steve mumbles through swollen lips, holding a formerly frozen bag of peas to his face.

Hopper just shakes his head at him and stubs his cigarette out. He pulls up a chair and sinks into it gratefully, feeling every ache and pain in his body that he’s been pushing away ‘til now.

“So...what happened?” Lucas finally asks quietly, after they just sit in silence for a moment and just _process_.

“She closed the gate,” is all he says.

When he closes his eyes, he doesn’t see the Demogorgons, or the Mind Flayer, or Bob’s corpse as he’s being torn to pieces. He sees El, blood streaming from her nose and screaming her lungs out. Levitating in mid air, veins in her head and neck popping out, as she puts all of herself into closing that fucking gate.

When the gate had closed and she had crashed into his arms, for one heart stopping moment, Hopper had thought that El had died.

But then she took a shuddering breath, and his world was safe.

“Is she going to be okay?” Mike asks from behind him as he enters the kitchen. In the bright lighting, Hopper can see that the kid’s eyes are bloodshot, and that his hands are shaking. He doesn’t let the guilt crash into him again, he might not be able to hold himself together this time.

Instead, he just nods sharply. “She just needs rest, is all. It took a lot out of her.”

“So, it’s over? For real this time?” Nancy speaks up, and they all turn to look at him.

“Yeah. We’re done.”

 

* * *

 

 

Eleven’s eyes fly open, just barely holding in a scream behind her teeth. For a moment, she’s confused about where she is. The room is dark, but she can hear even breathing around her. She’s on a couch, and there’s a dark shape at the end of it. At first, she almost calls out Kali’s name...but then she recognizes the features. It’s Dustin, curled up into himself as he sleeps. Then, she remembers.

“Home,” El whispers to herself, wiping her tears away quickly.

Her eyes adjust, and she realizes that it’s not completely dark; there is sunlight filtering in from the covered windows. She looks down and realizes that her hand is interlocked with someone else’s. Mike is asleep on the floor next to her, completely wrapped up in a thick blanket except for part of his head and his hand, which is holding on to hers tightly even while asleep.

El looks up around the room; she spots Hopper snoring away in the middle of what looks like a pile of people. Joyce is curled up with her back pressed against him, Will in her arms. Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve are sharing a mattress, all tangled limbs and blankets. And then, Lucas and…. _her_.

They’re curled into each other, foreheads almost touching. They’re holding hands too, and El’s confused for a moment. Then, she looks back down at her’s and Mike’s hands, and understands.

She squeezes Mike’s hand until he starts to stir and pops his head out of his nest of blankets to look up sleepily at her. He gives her a slightly strange look, and she’s about to ask him what’s wrong, when he blinks twice and then smiles at her.

“Hey, ‘morning. You okay?” he whispers up to her. El sighs before giving him a warm smile. “Yes.”

Together, they gather their blankets and tiptoe their way across the living room and over sleeping bodies and head into Will’s room, the only one that managed to keep its mattress. They curl up together in the middle of the bed, arms around each other. The sun shines through the window and El can hear birds chirping in the distance. Mike’s breathing is steady, his presence warm and comforting.

“I thought I was dreaming,” he says suddenly.

“Hmm?”

“When I woke up. I was sure I was dreaming...and then I remembered. You’re really here,” Mike says with a small laugh.

“I’m here,” El says quietly, turning her face up to look at him. After a year of watching him from afar, seeing but never being able to touch, having Mike here is almost overwhelming. His hair is longer now, and she reaches up to wrap a curl around her finger as he laughs. His light brown eyes crinkle at the corners, and she likes that she can make him do that.

“Pretty,” she says quietly, and she watches as Mike’s cheeks turn slightly pink.

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

She keeps threading her fingers through his hair, and it feels nice; all soft and warm. Mike’s eyes flutter shut, and El thinks he looks so peaceful. She thinks back to one of her word of the days, something she had picked out early on.

_LOVE (noun): the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration_

She’d had to look up the other words in the dictionary too, but Hopper had explained it to her. The feeling you have for other people that you would do absolutely _anything_ for. It warms your whole self, from head to toe; it makes you want to sing and dance and do whatever you have to to keep them happy.

El thinks she loves Mike.

It feels so easy, then, to lean up and press her lips to his as Mike’s eyes open in slight surprise. But then he smiles into the kiss before cupping his hand on her cheek. El pulls him closer to her, warm and pliant. She remembers feeling so cold, living alone in the lab, with no one there to comfort her through her constant pain.

She never wants to feel like that again.

 

* * *

 

For a split second after she wakes up, Joyce feels content. Her son sleeping soundly in her arms, and Bob asleep right next to her.

And then reality crashes back into her, and so does the grief that comes with it. 

The images of Bob being... _eaten_ by that monster threaten to overwhelm her, so much so that she can feel bile rising up in her throat. So she listens to Will's rhythmic breathing and tries to match it with her own.

_in...out...in...out...in...out_

It helps keep the nausea away, at least, but the pain isn't going anywhere any time soon. Carefully, so as not to wake Will, she detangles herself from him and tucks his blankets around him tighter. She's relieved to see more color in his face now than there was last night, and he looks like he's sleeping deeper than he has been for months now. She turns to glance at Hopper, only to realize that he's already awake and watching her carefully.

"Hey," he whispers. She gives him a tired smile.

"Hey."

Joyce watches as his eyes flicker over to the sofa, and narrow when he realizes that neither El or Mike are there anymore. That manages to get an actual smile out of her.

"Leave them be, Hop. Help me figure out what to do for breakfast for all these kids, instead."

Still, it takes a couple more prods 'til he gets up, and together they shamble towards the kitchen. Christ, Joyce hadn't realized how bad the kitchen was until now, post-world ending crisis. 

"What the hell is that smell?" she asks with a cough, wrinkling her nose. It's coming from her fridge of all places, and she exchanges a glance with Hopper.

"Did...you move the body of that... _thing_ outside?" Joyce asks Hopper suddenly, a suspicion forming in her mind. Hopper is already on the same page as her, glaring at the fridge as if it's personally offended him.

"I'm gonna kill them, I really am."

She looks around, and finally notices that all of the food is scattered around the kitchen, and her suspicions are confirmed.

"Fuck."

"Yeah."

Joyce just looks back up at Hopper; the dark circles under his eyes that have been there for a year and she just hadn’t noticed, too wrapped up in Will and his problems that she hadn’t noticed anyone else’s (including her own).

“Thank you. For...being there, all the time,” she says suddenly, her voice breaking as tears well up in her eyes.

Joyce doesn’t know what to even cry for anymore; for Bob’s unnecessary death, for Eleven and all that she’s been through, for all these kids that have seen and faced such darkness at such a young age, for this man that’s standing right in front of her and who’s been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for such a long time.

“Hey, no, don’t,” Hopper shakes his head and pulls her into his arms. “You’re okay. We’re okay.”

“Bob isn’t,” she says into his shirt, and Hop just holds on tighter.

“Bob is a fucking hero. And you know why? ‘Cause he loved you, and he loved those boys. He just wanted to make sure you guys were safe,” he says, and that just makes her cry harder.


	2. day three

_day three_

It takes two gallons of bleach and so much fucking soap, but Steve and Dustin finally manage to scrub Joyce’s fridge clean top to bottom. Steve throws his sponge into the filthy ass bucket of water next to him and dries off his hands as Dustin plops down into the nearest chair.

“I can’t believe they burned the body,” Dustin moans for the millionth time, and Steve has to take a couple of deep breaths to keep from strangling the kid.

“Do you really want to go back and argue with Joyce and Hop? Because I promise you kid, you’ll lose.”

Steve doesn’t really know when they went from “Ms. Byers and Chief Hopper” to just “Joyce and Hop”. Probably somewhere around the time when they were fighting for their collective lives together, or something.

 _Surreal_ doesn’t even begin to describe the last couple of days, post-apocalypse. He’d rather die than tell anyone this, but for some reason he feels safer here in the Byers household than his own home (even after facing death head on with a fucking baseball bat more times than the average person).

“Hey, shouldn’t you be in school?” he asks Dustin suddenly as it occurs to him. It’s noon on like a Wednesday, after all. Dustin just snorts at him and, fair point, Steve sometimes forgets he himself is still a student too.

“We’ve been telling our parents that we all caught the flu or something. Mike’s dad literally doesn’t give a shit, and Nancy’s been covering with his mom. My mom’s at work so she doesn’t know I’m not at home, and Lucas and Max are actually going to school,” he says with a sigh and a shake of his head. Steve frowns at him.

“How’re you doing? With, y’know, everything?”

A year ago, King Steve would not give a rat’s ass about this kid. He wouldn’t be here, in the Byers’ house cleaning a fridge as punishment for stuffing a monster’s dead body into it. He would have told everyone to fuck off while driving off into the sunset, pretty girl sitting shotgun and all. Now though…

Things are different, and Steve’s still trying to find his footing amongst it all.

“Okay, I guess.” Dustin says with a shrug. “I’m not having as many nightmares this time around, compared to last year anyway. Is...is it bad that I kinda miss Dart, though?”

Steve blinks down at him in surprise. Dustin’s face is downturned, hidden under the brim of his hat.

“Do you miss Dart, or…” and Steve is really about to take a shot in the dark, but he thinks he knows what’s _really_ bothering the kid, “...do you miss your friends?”

“Huh?” Dustin looks up at him, wariness in his eyes, and Steve knows he’s right.

“I mean, I don’t blame you, kid. Will’s still recovering, so he’s not out much. Mike and El literally can’t take their eyes off each other, it’s kind of ridiculous. And then there’s Lucas and Max…”

Steve trails off as he sees Dustin wince slightly. Ah, man.

“Look, I’m sorry that Max...doesn’t feel the same way about you that you do about her,” Steve begins, not entirely believing that he’s actually having this conversation with his maybe-girlfriend-maybe-not-who-the-hell-knows-what-they-are-anymore’s little brother’s best friend.

“But there are plenty of other girls out there, believe me. You just gotta wait for the best one, that girl that’s worth fighting for. And if you happen to...explore your options while you’re waiting, well that’s your business.”

Dustin looks back up at him with his eyes full of trust, and wow, Steve suddenly feels floored. He’s never really had anyone to depend on him, more like the other way around. But when he had found himself protecting these idiot kids with his life, I guess you could say his world views changed.

And then he hears Dustin say, “What do you mean when you say, _explore_?”

Nope.

“We are not having that conversation,” Steve replies cheerfully, clapping the kid on his shoulder. “Go wash up, you smell like ass.”

“Takes one to know one,” Dustin says with a grin, but obeys nonetheless.

 

* * *

 

“...You need to talk to him, Nancy,” Jonathan says.

Nancy doesn’t react, just continues to sit in the passenger seat quietly, hands folded on her lap. He sighs.

“What happened with us, it was amazing...but it was wrong. You know it, I know it, he probably knows it too.”

He sees a tear drip down off the tip of her chin and onto her skirt, and feels a slight twinge of guilt for making her cry. But this is a conversation that they _have_ to have.

“Steve doesn’t deserve to get hurt like that. He needs to know,” Jonathan finally says, and that gets a reaction out of her.

“I know,” Nancy says, voice trembling. “I need to tell him. Be upfront about it.”

They’re parked in front of his house, and Jonathan just knows that it’s packed. His mom still isn’t letting Will leave the house by himself, and the kids are very reluctant to stay away from him for too long. Plus, Hopper and El usually end up here after he gets out of work, and good luck to anyone trying to get Mike away from El at all.

And then there’s Steve.

Whatever the hell trauma they’ve been through together, means that the kids pretty much bonded over Steve now. But, they’re not overtly affectionate or anything. Hearing the witty barbs thrown to each other from across the room is pretty hilarious.

It’s more in the way that they follow him everywhere now, almost like ducklings with attitude. He’s the one that’s chauffeuring them to and from their houses. He dotes on them in his own weird way, like harassing them when he doesn’t think they’ve eaten enough, or getting them to help clean the house after they ended up saving the world, or whatever (“ _It’s the least you little ingrates can do for Joyce_ ”).

Steve has even started looking after Will, just like the others. He’ll listen patiently as Will just rambles on and on about comics and superheroes, and stuff he likes to draw. He’ll make sure that if everyone’s eating dinner at their house, that Will gets the first and best pickings, since he’s lost so much weight in the past few months.

Steve doesn’t make fun of Will if he doesn’t want to be left alone when he sleeps during the day, or wants to keep the light on. Jonathan’s even caught Steve sitting by Will’s bedside as he sleeps, thumbing through some of Will’s more impressive drawings. The point is, Steve is a changed man from the absolute jackass he’s been the year before. That man didn't deserve to be cheated on.

“Are you going to end it with him?” Jonathan asks Nancy quietly, and she clenches her hands together so tightly her knuckles turn white.

“I...think I still love him,” she says, and he can hear the misery in her voice. Jonathan closes his eyes in defeat.

“Okay.”

“But.”

“But?”

“I think I lo--”

Before she can finish, there’s a commotion at the front of the house as the door bangs open and a slew of pre teens come running out the door. And speak of the devil, Steve’s right behind them, leaning against the door frame and watching them with a neutral expression. Nancy takes a shaky breath and wipes her tears away quickly before Mike or the others can see, and opens her door.

Meanwhile, Will and Dustin run up to meet him, and Jonathan feels a surge of love well up in him. If there’s anyone on this planet that can make him forget about his own crappy problems, it’s his little brother.

“Hey. How’re you feeling, buddy?”

“A lot better,” Will says with a grin, and the relief that goes through Jonathan is insane. Will looks so much better and brighter, a lot like he was before any of it.

“Can you take us to get ice cream?” Dustin interjects, and Jonathan huffs out a quiet laugh.

“Sure, but what about—,”

“Well, Eleven still can’t go out in public, so Mike’s gonna stay here with her as long as we bring them back some. Which is fine, ‘cause we wouldn’t be able to fit in the car anyways,” Will says quickly, and there’s no way Jonathan would say no to him.

“Just get them out of my hair,” Steve says, and that’s when Jonathan realizes that he’s standing right there. And then, the weirdest thing happens.

Steve gives him a lopsided smile, and Jonathan can feel himself start to turn red.

_Well, fuck._

He hadn’t been expecting Steve to smile at him, and he _definitely_ hadn’t expected to react like that.

Thankfully, he ducks his head before anyone notices, tossing out a “So are you guys coming, or what?”. The kids cheer and start to pile into the car. He gets back into the car and locks eyes with Nancy. She has her arms wrapped around her waist, as if she’s trying to hold herself together.

“Bring me back something good, you shitheads!” Steve shouts to the kids, and Dustin yells back an affirmative.

Jonathan just focuses on avoiding eye contact with everyone and absolutely not thinking about Steve.

 

* * *

 

It’s a true shame that Ms. Byers doesn’t really keep alcohol in the house, because Nancy could really use a shot right now.

_The truth will set you free._

She’d read that somewhere, doesn’t really remember where. She hopes it’s true, because the constant low level nausea and permanent chill in her bones is killing her.

That night...god, that night.

At the time, it had felt right. Like the universe had just clicked. Afterwards, holding Jonathan close and whispering in his ear, Nancy could feel her heart growing and making room for this beautiful boy.

But then they’d returned to Hawkins, and she’d gotten a look at Steve, and immediately felt cold all over like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on her head.

_I cheated on Steve. With Jonathan._

And now, she’s back to feeling off kilter and empty, just like before this shitshow started. It just doesn’t make any sense!

When she was with Steve, she felt miserable. Nancy had thought it was all guilt over her role in Barb’s death, and guilt over not being in love with Steve. But now, she’s with Jonathan and she’s gotten justice for Barb, and she still feels miserable.

“Maybe I’m just crazy,” she sighs to herself.

“We already knew that, though,” Mike says as he walks by her, and she flicks him upside the head in passing. On the bright side, Mike’s no longer as miserable as she is. Having El back seems like it’s given him a new perspective on life.

Nancy finds Steve sitting on the back steps of the house, leaning back against his arms and looking up at the sky. The bruising on his face is starting to fade into a yellowish green, and his split lip stands out in sharp contrast.

Mike had told her about Billy Hargrove showing up and beating the shit out of Steve for defending Lucas and Max, and the only reason Nancy hadn’t taken Steve’s baseball bat and returned the fucking favor was because of Max (although Nancy suspects that she would be doing her a favor, too).

“Hey. Mind if I sit?” she asks, and he doesn’t say anything, merely scoots over to make room for her.

They sit in silence for a bit, and Nancy’s just trying to write a speech in her head when Steve, without looking at her, says: “So, you gonna tell me what happened with you and him?”

Her stomach is rolling and her palms are clammy, but somehow Nancy opens her mouth and just starts starts talking and talking about _everything_.

And before she even knows it, she’s got her fingers tangled in her hair as she’s trying to apologize in between sobs. Nancy’s curled up into herself, because she can’t face Steve right now, not after everything that she’s put him through.

“Just...I’m gonna ask you again, Nance, and I just want a straight fucking answer, _please_ ,” Steve says, and she can hear in his voice that he’s crying too. “Do you love me?”

“Yes,” she chokes out. “I love you still, and I’m sorry but I love him too and I don’t know what to do.”

And there lies the crux of her problem. She’s in love with two different guys.

Steve doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and Nancy just cries into her folded arms until her sobs taper off and she’s just sniffling.

“Look at me. Please.”

Steve’s voice is hoarse, and when she finally does look up at him, his eyes are red and he’s running his hand through his already unruly hair.

“So you’re in love with Jonathan. Okay.”

“What?”

“I said, it’s okay. Listen, you’d have to be a blind idiot to not see what you two have. But you...you need to figure out what you want, and I can’t be there for that.”

He’s breaking up with her, Nancy realizes. Well, it’s nothing less than what she deserves.

“I’m not gonna let you string me along, no matter how much I still love you,” Steve says, and that almost sends Nancy back into tears but she manages to keep it together. “And honestly, Nancy...you shouldn’t string him along either.”

“The hell do you mean?” she snaps unintentionally. But Steve had touched a nerve there, and they know it.

“Don’t decide to date the poor guy for twelve months, and then decide that you were kidding yourself about loving him.”

“ _I’m not kidding myself, Steve._ ”

“ _Nancy._ Just listen to me for once in your life, Christ,” Steve snaps, before taking a breath to try and calm himself down.

Nancy looks down again and realizes that she’s been digging her nails into her hands so hard that she'd drawn blood.

“You and me, right now, we’re not okay. I still love you, and you’re still pretty much my best friend, but we’re not fucking okay. I’m gonna need some time, and I think you need some time to get your shit together. Without either of us.”

No Steve. No Jonathan.

Before, over a year ago, that would have been okay. It would have hurt, but she’d have been okay in the end because she wouldn’t have been totally alone. But now…

No Barb.

Well. She deserves this, after all, Nancy thinks wildly as she barely holds in sudden hysterical laughter.

“Okay.”

Steve blows out a breath, and seems to close in on himself. “Go home, Nance.”

Still, it takes her a minute to find her footing enough to wobble unsteadily to her feet and head back inside, leaving Steve to sit by himself.

Nancy heads to the living room, and just leans on the doorway and watches them.

El’s sitting on the floor, coloring with Will’s crayons and his blessing. Mike’s sitting next to her, watching her and beaming brightly whenever she shows him her drawings. Her heart aches, and she prays to whoever is listening that her brother and his heart never hurt as much as she’s hurting now.

“Nance?” Mike says suddenly, jarring her thoughts. She hadn’t noticed him get up and walk towards her, and now he’s standing there looking at her with concern in his eyes. He’s almost at eye level with her now, and when did he grow up already, she doesn’t know.

“You okay?”

Nancy just shakes her head; she can’t imagine what she looks like. “Can y-you...take me home?”

She’s expecting him to protest; after all, she’s asking him to leave El. But to her surprise, he just nods.

So that’s how Nancy ends up hitching a ride home with her little brother on his bike, her arms wrapped around him and her cheek pressed against his back. And if Mike feels her tears dampening the back of his shirt, he doesn’t say a word about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feelings are hard. 
> 
> So who else is very disappointed in how the Duffer Bros handled the whole Steve/Nancy/Jonathan thing? I expected a lot better than what we got. So naturally, it had to be addressed, and hopefully I did it justice. We’ll see!


	3. day six

_day six_

Max walks out of her house, taking care to shut the door quietly behind her. There’s no slamming doors in their house, after all. The sun is bright as she jogs a little bit down the road, her skateboard strapped to her back, until she’s sure that no one can see her from her house.

The road bends into a curve, and then she sees him.

Lucas hasn’t spotted her yet; he’s distracted by looking up at a singing bird in a tree. The sunlight shines through the leaves, leaving a pattern of light on his skin. Max can’t help the small sigh that escapes her.

“Hey, stalker!” she calls out, after pulling herself together. Lucas’s head whips toward her, and she’s met with a brilliant smile.

“Mad Max! You ready?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

The multi colored leaves swirl around them as Lucas pedals quickly, and she notes that the air is getting colder as the days go by. (At least, that’ll be her excuse for winding her arms tighter around Lucas, thankful that he can’t see her blush).

Soon, they get to the junkyard, and apparently they’re the last ones there. Mike and Will are already engaged in a mock sword fight, making use of whatever they got their hands on, while Dustin and Eleven sit on the hood of a car watching them and laughing.

“Ugh, finally guys. What’d you do, stop to make out along the way?” Dustin calls once he sees them, making the appropriate kissy face. Max and Lucas manage to flip him off in unison.

“Leave ‘em alone,” Mike says with a grin, conceding defeat to Will with a dramatic bow.

“Hey, don’t defend them just ‘cause your girlfriend is sitting right here,” Dustin retorts with a wicked grin, and Max almost chokes on her laughter as they watch Mike turn a brilliant red.

“Girlfriend?” Eleven asks Dustin with a questioning look.

“ _Can you shut the hell up?!_ ”

“Mike and Eleven sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S—“

Mike lunges for Dustin, and soon they’re chasing each other all around the junkyard. Lucas is dying of laughter, while Will looks to the heavens like he’s praying for patience. Eleven just looks confused, and Max can’t blame her.

“Oh hey, Will! Do you wanna see what we did to the bus? It’s pretty cool!” Lucas asks, and Will grins and nods.

Max, meanwhile, sets her skateboard down. She’s pretty sure she can make some ramps with all the stuff here, it’d be totally cool for tricks. The two boys run off, Lucas throwing one last smile at Max, and then she realizes that it’s just her and Eleven now.

This is the first time that they’ve actually been alone together; Mike basically spends all of his time glued to her side, as if he’s afraid that she’ll leave again if he doesn’t. Eleven hasn’t actually said a single word to her since the day they met, and Max honestly doesn’t know what she did wrong.

Max decides to just ride her skateboard, it’s what she does best, after all. Pretty soon, her hair’s flying in the wind and she’s got a huge grin on her face and she just doesn’t care. Skateboarding is as close to flying and freedom as she’s ever going to get, and it’s the one thing that her step dad or step brother will _never_ take from her.

Max is so preoccupied with doing new tricks, and trying to perfect them, that when she’s going full speed she doesn’t notice the big rock in her way until she’s tossed off her board.

“Oh, _fuck_.”

She closes her eyes and braces for impact…

...but it never comes.

Max opens her eyes and blinks a couple of times just to make sure that she’s not imagining this shit. But no, she’s _actually_ levitating in mid air, her face less than a foot from the ground.

“ _Holy_   _shit_.”

Slowly, she feels herself being set upright and placed gently on her feet. With wide eyes, Max looks up at Eleven. Her hand is outstretched towards her, and she can see the blood trickling from her nose. Once she’s sure that Max is fine, Eleven lets her hand drop, and the two girls just stare at each other.

“....Thanks,” Max finally calls out. “For not letting me fall on my face.”

“You’re welcome,” Eleven says quietly, wiping the blood on her face away with the back of her hand.

In the bright daylight, Eleven looks nothing like the badass punk rocker warrior that Max had laid eyes on that night at Will’s house. Her hair’s no longer slicked back, merely falling in waves and framing her pretty face. She’s wearing an oversized pink sweater, probably one of Nancy’s hand-me-downs, and pale jeans and faded shoes.

“Why don’t you like me?” Max blurts out to her own horror. Eleven blinks, before sighing, her shoulders slumping.

“...I’m sorry,” Eleven finally says after a minute of awkward silence.

“Sorry for not liking me?”

Eleven shakes her head, and purses her lips in thought, like she’s trying to think of the right words to say. Then, she spots Max’s skateboard.

Max watches warily as Eleven jerks her head to the side, and her skateboard moves on its own in a sudden movement. She frowns; what is she…?

Then it clicks. The school gym.

“That was you,” Max says, eyes wide. No wonder Mike had run out of there so fast, he must have known!

Eleven nods, her eyes somber. “I’m sorry.”

“But...why?” Max can’t even say she’s mad, just confused as all hell. She hadn’t even met Eleven yet! She had just been playing around on her skateboard, messing around with Mike…

_Oh._

“You were jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“It’s like...what you felt when you saw us and thought we were into each other. Which we’re not!” Max hastens to clarify, before Eleven gets the wrong impression again and sends her flying through the air, or something.

“I know.”

“You—what? You know what?”

“I know you’re not... _into_ Mike.”

“Oh, thank god.”

“You like Lucas.”

“I...yeah,” Max sighs, and looks up at the sky. There’s no point in denying it. She likes Lucas. Like, _a_ _lot_.

Likes when he smiles super big at her and makes her stomach feel all fluttery.

Likes his stupid bandana that he’s obsessed over.

Likes his unending loyalty to his friends.

Likes that he doesn’t judge her and is willing to actually listen to her, unlike anyone in her family.

Max can feel herself blushing, and when she looks up again, she can see Eleven smile at her understandingly.

“Friend?” Eleven asks her. Max blinks in surprise, before smiling back at her.

“Yeah. Friend. Hey, do you wanna learn how to skateboard?”

 

* * *

 

Dustin and Mike end up collapsing together near the edge of the junkyard in an old, torn apart car. They agree to a mutual truce, winded after all of that running. 

“You’d think,” Dustin wheezes, “that after all that time running for our _lives_ that we’d be better at running in general.”

“When the hell have we ever been athletic?” Mike says, clutching his side. Dustin grins and punches his arm lightly in response.

The boys sit in silence for a moment, Dustin leaning his head back and waiting to catch his breath. In the distance, they can hear everyone else playing and laughing. Dustin huffs out a quiet laugh, and looks over to see Mike smiling as well, something that he hasn’t seen in a very long time.

He’s missed this, hanging out with his friends. Having fun, and more importantly, not fearing for any of their lives. And now, they have El back.

“Y’know, you don’t look so tired anymore,” Dustin remarks. Mike turns to him with a raised brow.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, before...you had these dark circles under your eyes, like you weren’t getting enough sleep at night.”

Dustin thinks that the others tend to forget that he’s a pretty observant person. Yeah, he runs his mouth until he runs out of air, but when he’s not talking he’s just watching. And ever since Eleven beat the Demogorgon last year, he’s been watching Mike.

(Mike was too busy mourning El, so Dustin doubts he’s noticed.)

“I, uh, I couldn’t sleep,” Mike says with a deep breath. “Whenever I’d close my eyes, I would just see the Demogorgon...and El. I kept imagining her in the Upside Down, alone and scared. Or...or worse.”

Mike’s voice cracks then, and for the first time, Dustin truly _sees_ how scared Mike must’ve been all this time.

“What did you do, when you couldn’t sleep?”

“I’d call out to her on my walkie-talkie. I wasn’t kidding when I told her I called her every night. Just...hoping and praying that she could hear me and know she wasn’t alone, and that I would never abandon her.”

Tears spill out of Mike, and Dustin reaches over to squeeze his arm, a pang of guilt in his chest for not seeing how much pain his friend had been carrying all by himself for so much time. He tries desperately to think of something to talk about that’ll cheer Mike up, and blurts out the first thing he thinks of.

“What’s it like to be in love?”

Hmm, well, that’s certainly a distraction so Dustin gives himself points for effort. Mike blinks up at him in surprise, eyelashes still wet and wiping his tears away. “What?”

Dustin repeats his question, and can’t help but smile at the blush rising on his friend’s face. Honestly, he’s been wondering this for a while. Last year watching Mike and El, he’d known that Mike had a crush on her from the moment they met. But then, watching him mourn her every day for a year and never giving up hope that she was still out there, Dustin came to realize that they might be dealing with the big “L” word.

And then, a Demodog had gone flying through the Byers’ window, El made her dramatic entrance, and it was like watching Mike come to life again right in front of his eyes. That had confirmed it.

It’s also very telling that Mike doesn’t bother denying it, like Dustin had thought he would. He just wipes his tears away and takes a minute to think carefully before answering.

“It’s kind of like...okay, so do you remember when all of our families went camping a couple of summers ago?”

“Uh, yeah, never again,” Dustin says with a shudder. Sleeping outdoors with nothing but a tent and no electricity wasn’t actually as great as they had thought it would be.

“Oh, it wasn’t _all_ bad,” Mike says with a grin. “You remember swimming in that river?”

“Oh, yeah! And we were jumping off of that old tire swing we found!” Dustin says, flashing back to that time. They’d found the river purely by accident, beautiful clear water and a ton of ledges that were great to jump off of. They had found a tire swing by a higher ledge, and had taken turns swinging off of it and into the water. It was definitely the highlight of the camping trip, Dustin thinks.

“Do you remember how it felt to let go off the tire swing, just before you hit the water?” Mike asks, a dreamy look in his eyes. “That rush in the pit of your stomach, feeling like you were gonna fly forever?”

“Yeah.”

“Being in love with El is like that, times ten.”

 

* * *

 

“Did Steve _really_ fight off an army of Demodogs?” Will asks.

“Hell yeah he did. Thought he was gonna die,” Lucas answers with a shake of his head.

The boys are sitting on the roof of the school bus, soaking up as much sun as possible. Lucas knows that ever since he was possessed by the Mind Flayer, Will doesn’t like the cold at all.

In the distance, they can see Max teaching El how to skateboard. El falls off a lot, but Max helps her up every time.

“How’re you feeling, man?” Lucas asks Will.

“Good as new,” Will says with a smile.

“Well, ya look great,” Lucas replies, high fiving him.

Will closes his eyes and turns his face back up to the sun, while Lucas turns his attention back to the girls. Or really, Max.

Her bright red hair glows in the sun, and even from here Lucas can see her pretty smile.

“Wow, you really like this girl, don’t you?” Will’s voice breaks into his thoughts, and Lucas turns quickly to look at him with wide eyes.

“You should see the look on your face,” Will says with a laugh.

“Shut up,” Lucas says, willing the blush on his face to go away.

“No, no, I’m happy for you,” Will says. “Maybe now you’ll loosen up a little more.”

“Shut up,” Lucas says again, but can’t help but smile anyway.

Max is just so...so _cool_. She doesn’t care about being all girly and stuff, she just does what she wants. Honestly, he could listen to her talk for _hours_.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Will says, and Lucas turns to look at him.

“Shoot.”

“How’d you know you liked gi—um, I mean, Max?”

Lucas blinks in surprise. Will’s face is flushed, and he can’t quite meet his eye but tries anyway.

“Well...I guess, Max is the first girl that treated me like an actual _person_. I mean, El doesn’t count obviously, ‘cause she’s off limits.”

The boys share a grin at the thought of absolutely any other boy flirting with El around Mike, and his subsequent heart attack.

“At first, I just kinda liked her ‘cause she was into video games like me, and her skateboarding is so cool. But then...we actually started talking to each other.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She’s really smart, and brave, and she cares about a lot of stuff. She’s just so… _Max_ ,” Lucas says with a happy sigh.

Will’s smiling softly at him, patting his arm gently. “I hope I can find someone like that one day.”

“You totally will! Some day, some girl is gonna be so lucky to have you,” Lucas says eagerly, but furrows his brow as he watches the light in Will’s eyes dim a bit as he looks down.

“Someone,” Lucas hears himself say, not entirely sure why. Will looks back up at him in confusion. “ _Someone_ will be lucky to have you. ‘Cause you’re an awesome guy and an even better friend.”

Will blinks in surprise, and Lucas pretends not to notice the moisture in his eyes. “Thanks, Lucas.”

“No problem, dude. Hey, do you wanna go grab the others and play tag?”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /bangs on table with fists/ female frienDSHIPS FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this more lighthearted chapter! We’re back to our regularly scheduled angst next chapter, don’t worry.


	4. day ten

_day ten_

_“How are you, Will?” his mother asks._

_“I’m fine,” says Will._

_“How are you, Will?” his brother asks._

_“I’m fine,” says Will._

_“How are you, Will?” his friends ask._

_“I’m fine,” says Will._

(He’s not fine.)

...

Will shudders awake with a gasp and immediately pulls his pillow over his face to muffle the scream that tears out of his throat. For a moment, he almost chokes on the smell of death in the air and all he can see are the bodies of the soldiers he _helped kill_ —

“You’re okay. You’re okay,” he chants, pulling the pillow away from his face. “You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay…”

He’s home, in his bed, free of the Mind Flayer. It’s almost 5 in the morning, according to his clock, too early for his mom or his brother to be awake yet. Will takes a shuddering breath and starts to count backwards from 100; it helps center himself and slow his racing heart.

_16...15...14..._

His eyes fall on his walkie talkie.

_13...12...11…_

The morning after well, _everything_ , and he’d woken up along with everyone else and congregated in the kitchen, Mike had walked in hand in hand with a girl.

Will had taken one look at her and dropped everything to get up and throw his arms around her.

“Hello, Will,” Eleven had murmured into his ear, her arms going around him. Will just held on tighter.

“ _Thank you_ ,” he had whispered feverently. For helping free him from the Upside Down the first time around, and for trapping that monster forever where it belonged.

Will knows that El’s the only one who really understands, no matter how good everyone else’s intentions are. She’s the only other one that’s seen the darkness of the Upside Down, and faced it head on. So before he can talk himself out of it, he grabs his walkie talkie and switches to her channel.

“Hey, El? It’s Will, over.”

It takes a few minutes before he hears the familiar static crackle from the walkie.

“Hi, Will.”

“Remember to say over when you finish your message,” Will says with a smile. “Over.”

“Oh! Sorry. Um, over.”

She doesn’t sound like he just woke her up, he notes. “Were you awake? Over.”

“Yeah. Had a dream about the bad men again. Over.”

“I’m sorry. I had a bad dream too, over.”

“The Upside Down? Over.”

“No,” Will says, trying to swallow around a sudden lump in his throat. “I, um, I was in the lab, like back in the hospital room. And it was like my mind was split in two. I could see Mom and Bob and Hopper and Mike...but I could also see through the monster’s eyes.”

“What happened?”

“I...I told them to go into the tunnels,” Will says, feeling cold all over. He _hates_ the cold. It reminds him of feeling that _thing_ take control of his body. “I told them that they had to go into the tunnels to destroy the Mind Flayer, but…”

“It was a trap,” El says, and he closes his eyes.

“Yeah. I killed them.”

He remembers seeing everything; the screams, the sound of their bodies being torn to shreds, the smell of decay and destruction…

“No, Will, you didn’t.”

And El’s voice sounds so gentle and forgiving, even over the walkie, and Will can’t take it. He doesn’t deserve that kindness, not after what he did.

“I did,” he snaps.

“No. It was the Mind Flayer.”

“It was _me_ , I let him do it.”

“ _No you didn’t_.”

“How can you know that?” Will hisses, trying not to raise his voice.

“Because I saw _it_. I saw how evil and dark it is, and _that’s not you_.”

“You don’t even know me!” Will snaps.

He doesn’t notice the tears running down his face or the trembling in his hands. He doesn’t know why he’s so angry now, just that he _can’t_ accept what she’s saying to him. Will sent those soldiers to their deaths, it’s their blood on his hands. The sheer guilt inside of him has been eating him alive since that day, and Will is just so _fucking tired_.

Eleven doesn’t answer anymore, and Will just shoves his walkie under his bed.

 

* * *

 

“Crap, crap, crap,” Mike chants under his breath, tossing his room apart to look for his school books.

It’s gotten so cold outside now to the point where they can’t ride their bikes to school anymore. And somehow, Dustin had managed to convince Steve that it was in his best interests to pick him, Mike, and Lucas up and drop them off before going to his school. So he knows that Steve will be there soon, and if Mike’s not already waiting on his porch then there’s a pretty good chance that Steve will leave him to fend for himself.

Mike’s got his half his body under his bed in the hopes that his books will magically turn up, when he hears a knock on his door.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Mike?” he hears Nancy’s voice, and he crawls back out to look at her.

“Hey. I thought you left already?”

“I will in a bit, but…” she holds up a small bag, and Mike raises a brow at her.

“What?”

“What is this?”

Mike raises his brow even _higher_. He’ll never actually admit this to anyone, but he’s been kinda worried about Nancy ever since Steve broke up with her. He has no clue what happened with them, Steve won’t even talk about it with Dustin, and Nancy hasn’t said a word about it either.

“It’s a bag of quarters, Nance,” he says slowly, making sure to pronounce his words clearly. She rolls her eyes at him.

“No shit, you ass. I _meant_ , what was this doing on my bed?”

Oh god, now she has memory loss. Well, if he’d known that, he never would have given her the quarters.

“Did you forget that I still owed you those quarters from when I went to the arcade? ‘Cause I mean, I’ll take them back,” Mike says. He finally spots his books out of the corner of his eye, and with a triumphant grin goes and shoves them in his bag.

“I...didn’t actually think you’d pay me back.”

He turns back to look at his sister, and she’s staring at him with a weird look in her eyes. Truthfully, he’d raked the leaves off a few of his neighbors’ lawns to earn that money, in the hopes of cheering her up a little bit.

(Again, he’ll _never_ actually reveal any of this.)

“I did say I’d pay you back, and I’m a man of my word. You’re not gonna cry about it are you?” Mike asks quickly, and the weird look is gone, followed by one that he’s more familiar with.

“No, asshole. But...thanks.” Nancy gives him a small smile, and he can’t help but smile back. She looks a little more like she’s back to normal, now.

She leaves, and Mike finishes grabbing all of his stuff. He’s taken to bringing his walkie talkie with him too, just in case El needs to talk to him during the day. He has it in his hands and is about to shove it in his bag, when it crackles to life.

“Mike?” El’s voice comes through, and Mike can’t help the big stupid grin on his face.

“El, hey! Morning! Did you sleep well?”

“Better, thanks.”

“Good, I’m glad. Hey, I gotta go but I’ll talk to you during lunch, okay?”

“Mike, wait.”

There’s a sense of urgency to her voice that makes Mike stop dead in his tracks, fear for her rippling through his veins.

“Are you okay? Do you need help?”

“I’m fine, but...you need to talk to Will.”

Will? Mike furrows his brow in confusion. He’s been looking better than ever, all smiles and cheer.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s not okay. Just, talk to him. _Please_.”

El sounds desperate, and Mike grips the walkie talkie tighter. She wouldn’t make something like this up, he’s sure.

“Okay, okay. I’ll talk to him.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Suddenly, Mike hears impatient honking coming from the front of his house, and he can almost hear Steve ranting about ungrateful kids.

“Crap. El, I really have to go, okay?”

They say their goodbyes, and Mike grabs his stuff and sprints out of his house and into Steve’s car in record time.

Miraculously, they get to school right as the bell rings, and Mike doesn’t have time to flag Will down. School’s been kicking his ass lately, and Mike had promised himself to do better because they have to teach El now too, if they want her to go to school with them next year.

(Now _that’s_ a thought that almost makes him dizzy with happiness.)

Mike resolves to just watch Will for the day, and then talk to him during lunch. It might not be as bad as El thinks it is, after all.

And really, Will _looks_ fine. He smiles back when others smile at him. He’s telling everyone he’s okay when they ask, and he’s not spacing out like before when he would get his episodes. Mike thinks everything is fine and El was probably just trying to watch out for her friend.

Except…

There! If he hadn’t been watching Will carefully, he might have missed it. It’s almost like Will’s been wearing a mask that he lets fall off for a few seconds; his smile slips off and suddenly, he just looks so _tired_. Mike sees dark circles under his eyes, and he honestly looks miserable.

But only for a few seconds. Mike watches as Lucas turns to say something to him, and suddenly Will is good as new again.

El might have been right about Will after all.

Mike comes up with some silly excuse to get Will to come with him to the AV Room during lunch time, leaving Dustin, Lucas, and Max to eat on their own. Will walks silently next to him, hands shoved into his pockets and shoulders slumped. It’s almost like he knows what’s coming.

“What’s going on with you?” Mike finally asks him. Will just shrugs.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“Why? Just because your girlfriend said so?” Will snaps, and now Mike knows for sure that El was right.

“Because I _know_ you, Will. You’re my best friend,” Mike pleads, and it kinda breaks his heart to see Will turn to look at him with anger in his eyes.

“If you’re _really_ my best friend, you’d leave me alone.”

Now that hurts, but Mike pushes that aside. It’s very rare that he’s seen Will angry; he’s usually the calm one out of all of them, willing to be the mediator in their party disputes. But he _does_ get angry, and they all know that Mike is the best one to help Will work through it.

“Will, just _stop_.”

They’re in the AV Room, and Mike shuts the door behind him. Will goes and sits on the edge of the table, his back turned to him. Mike can see the tension in his back, the way he hunches in on himself like he wants to make himself as small as possible.

“Stop what?”

“Stop acting like you’re okay!”

“I _am_ okay, Mike!” Will yells suddenly, and Mike flinches. “I...I _have_ to be okay!”

“No you don’t Will, god! I’m not okay yet, and I didn’t even go through half the shit you did!”

Mike starts walking slowly towards Will, making sure that he can see him approach out of the corner of his eye. Will doesn’t move, merely crosses his arms tightly across his chest. He still looks _so_ skinny and small, and Mike’s heart aches for him.

“Why...why do you think you have to be okay?” Mike asks him. Will closes his eyes as tears start to stream down his face.

“Because at least I’m still _alive_ ; Bob’s dead, and I--I sent those soldiers to die.”

“Oh, Will,” Mike sighs. He slowly drapes his arm over Will, and he just slumps against Mike like all the fight has gone out of him. “Bob chose to sacrifice himself for us, and you didn’t kill those soldiers.”

“I may as well have; I wasn’t strong enough to fight the Mind Flayer on my own. I was still there, trapped in my own head and listening to it talk through me. And I...I saw _everything_ that happened to them,” Will sobs, and Mike holds him tighter.

“It wasn’t you, Will. It was the Mind Flayer. You fought it as much as you could, and in the end you still broke through and helped us save the world. You’re one of the strongest people I know, and Will... _it wasn’t your fault_.”

Will just cries harder, like he's finally letting himself feel all of these emotions that he's been keeping bottled up for almost two weeks, and Mike can only hold on to him and remind him that he's not alone in any of this. "Just, talk to me Will. Or talk to your mom. Or Jonathan, or El, or Lucas, or Dustin, or Max, or Steve, or even Hopper!  _You're not alone_. We're here for you, just let us in, please."

Mike doesn't say anything else after that, just lets Will cry until he stops. Finally, Will wipes his face dry with his shirt sleeve, and Mike gives him a small smile. "Feel better?"

"A little," Will says with a watery chuckle. Suddenly, the bell rings to signal the end of their lunch period, and they sigh. Mike goes to grab his stuff and then looks over his shoulder at Will.

"You coming?"

"Mm, not yet. Can you tell the teacher that I'm gonna be a little late?" Will asks, and Mike frowns. He's about to protest and say that Will shouldn't be alone right now, when Will turns to look at the radio sitting in the middle of the table. "I have to apologize to a friend of ours."

Mike blinks for a second, then smiles. "Yeah, that's fine. Tell El I said hi."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a fair amount of you commented on the last chapter about will catching a break now, and i just had to laugh to myself. but we WILL get there...eventually! next up, we're checking back in with hop/el/joyce! <3


	5. day sixteen

_day sixteen_

Hopper gets down on one knee to fix the clasp on El’s cloak. She’s looking at him with her wide brown eyes, and he smiles at her.

“You look good, kid. Does it fit okay?”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, twirling and swishing a bit so the cloak billows out around her. It had belonged to Sara, something that Hopper had recently found when going through all her old stuff. The cloak is a deep, velvety black, all soft and warm; it falls down to El’s knees, and more importantly, it has a hood.

“So, remember what I told you?” he asks her. The corner of El’s lips quirk up in a small smile.

“Don’t take off the hood until we get to Will’s house. If someone that I don’t know tries to talk to me, I don’t look at them and I come find you. Don’t be stupid,” she recites, and Hopper snorts at her.

“Good girl. C’mon, it’s time to go.”

It’s cold as fuck outside, and Hopper thinks they might get some early snow this year. The drive down into town is uneventful, with El fiddling with the radio and humming along with whatever’s playing. He can’t help but glance at her out of the corner of his eye every once in a while; El looks as good as she’s ever been. She’s finally at a healthy weight, and she’s got a rosy color back in her cheeks.

The nightmares are still something that they’re dealing with, but they’re getting better too. So far, Hopper is just pretending he doesn’t know that if El doesn’t wake him up when she has a nightmare, then she calls Mike over the radio. Whatever makes her happy, and to the kid’s credit, he’s never once ignored her calls no matter what time it is.

They finally arrive, and it looks like they’re the last ones there; Hopper spots Jonathan’s car, the Wheeler’s car, and even Steve Harrington’s car. He and El get out and walk over to the entranceway, and Hopper finds himself hesitating. He hasn’t been back here once since...well, _Sara_. Suddenly, he feels a small hand slip into his, and he looks down at El.

“Together,” she says firmly, and Hopper almost keels over with how much he _loves_ this young girl.

“Yeah. Together,” he says gruffly. And so hand in hand, they walk into the cemetery for Bob’s funeral.

It’s a relatively small service; just their monster hunting party. The kids and teens are all there, in their black outfits and coats. El spots Mike and the others, and tugs on Hopper’s hand with a silent question in her eyes.

“Yeah, go ahead. Just be careful, and don’t go where I can’t see you,” he says, and she nods dutifully. He watches as El goes over and hugs each of them, and he pretends not to notice the quick peck on the cheek that Mike gives her before twining his hand in hers. Steve pats her gently on the head in greeting, and she smiles up at him.

Satisfied that El isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, Hopper turns his attention to Joyce as she stands alone by the grave, looking down into it.

Hopper can’t help but remember being here, standing next to a smaller grave. He remembers how completely _broken_ he’d felt, numb to anything that wasn’t his own pain echoing in his body. He still hurts to this day; that pain will probably be with him to his dying breath. But he can live with it now, he’s made his peace with it.

Carefully, he steps up next to her and pulls Joyce into his side. She moves with him without restraint, closing her eyes and burying her face in his chest.

“I’m sorry, Joyce. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more to save him,” Hopper says quietly.

“It’s not your fault,” she sighs. “In the end, he did what he thought was the right thing to do. You could always count on Bob for that. But it just fucking _hurts_.”

“I know it does,” Hopper says, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. Joyce just feels so small in his arms; he always finds himself surprised at how tiny she is compared to him. It’s hard to remember when he knows how fierce and powerful a force she can be when the lives of the people she loves are at stake.

“You’ll get through this, I know it. Just gotta take it one step at a time, and remember that you’re not alone. You have your boys, and you have me,” Hopper says, and that at least gets him a small smile from her.

“Yeah, I’ve got you, and the boys...and somehow the seven _other_ kids we’ve managed to adopt,” Joyce says, and Hopper chuckles quietly.

“They make life interesting, that’s for sure,” he replies, with a glance back at El. Her hood still securely hiding her face to anyone outside of their little party, she’s surrounded by her other little friends.

She’s got a light in her eyes that had been missing when it was just the two of them in the cabin, now that she’s been reunited with the first people in her life that had shown her any sort of kindness. And as much as the other little brats can be annoying and nosy and are probably the cause of all the gray in his hair now, Hopper finds himself realizing that he wouldn’t trade any of them for the world.

Sara’s grave is not far from where they are; Hopper knows its location like he knows his own heartbeat. The last time he’d been there, he had been convinced that his life was over and all he had to do was wait for the inevitable embrace of death to reunite him with Sara once more.

But now...he’s got another chance at life, here with this young girl that’s wormed her way into his heart, with this strong and courageous woman that has been through just as much pain and sorrow as he has, with this group of misfit and outsider kids that are also some of the bravest people he’s ever known.

 

* * *

 

Eleven blows her breath out slowly in the cold air, marveling at the way she can see it fog up in the air. Mike laughs softly at her, and she smiles back at him.

The funeral service is over, and everyone is back at the Byers’ house. El and Mike are sitting on the back steps of the house, sharing a thick quilt that’s wrapped around them and holding mugs of hot chocolate to keep their hands warm. They’re not the only ones outside too; they’re having fun watching Steve, Dustin, Max, and Lucas play something called ‘football’, while everyone else is inside.

(El had made the mistake of asking them to explain football to her, and had accidentally kicked off an almost hour long, and very confusing, explanation with Dustin and Steve talking over each other until Lucas had dragged them away to go play.)

“Go long, shithead!” Steve yells at Dustin.

Dustin throws his hands in the air. “What the hell does that even mean, you idiot?!”

“Just run!”

El can’t help but laugh as she watches them; the first time around, they hadn’t had the time to just ‘hang out’, as the boys (and Max) say. She had spent her time just terrified that Papa would find her and take her back to the lab. But now, she knows that she’s never going back there again, because Hop had promised her.

She’s just _so_ _happy_ , El’s come to realize. She doesn’t have to worry about the bad men coming to take her away anymore; Steve had told her it was because of something that Nancy and Jonathan had done. She doesn’t have to stay in the cabin all the time anymore either; sometimes, El’s allowed to spend the day with the Byers’ when Hop is working, or sometimes her friends can come and visit her at the cabin during the weekends.

Hop is nicer too; sometimes, they’ll still get mad and yell at each other, but she’s starting to understand more and more when she’s wrong, and she’ll apologize later when she’s calmed down. Other times, Hop will come over and apologize to her when he realizes he’s wrong. He gives El more hugs now too, and has started collecting books from the others so they can read together at night before bed.

El adores her friends too; Hop doesn’t let them all come at once because of the attention it might attract if people notice a bunch of kids continuously heading into the deep woods. But they’ll usually go in twos or threes, or they’ll just show up on their own.

Dustin helps her read his Lord of the Rings books, and El appreciates how patient he is with her whenever she has to constantly stop and ask him to explain stuff. He’s always enthusiastic, and no matter what, he always manages to make her laugh until she’s doubled over. He talks to El about his mom and how amazing she is, and about her new kitten too. Dustin’s promised her that El will be able to meet and play with Tews one day, and she can’t wait.

Lucas always brings a lot of board games when he visits. El thinks Monopoly is super hard, and Lucas tends to agree with her, but they usually end up throwing out the rules halfway through the game and just make it up as they go along. She likes Scrabble the best, because it helps her learn more words. (When El had beat Lucas at Scrabble for the first time, he just applauded her and told her how proud he was.)

Max tells her _all_ about the place that she’s from, called ‘California’. El thinks it sounds _beautiful_ , and she longs to go and visit someday, which Max has promised her they’ll do someday. Max will also talk about her papa, and how nice he is and how much she loves and misses him. (Sometimes, if she’s spending the night, Max will whisper quietly in the dead of night about her mama’s new husband and his son and how she and her mama get hurt. El can only hold Max’s hand tightly and let the hot rage wash over her uselessly, as there’s nothing she can do to help.)

Will...is getting better, El thinks. At first, they’d both been in so much pain, both physical and mental, that they hadn’t really been able to connect properly. But now, she considers him her closest friend, outside of Mike. He creates for her these gorgeous drawings that take her breath away when she sees them. He’s not as loud as the others, and El knows he prefers to just be the one in their group to watch the others and enjoy spending time with them, which she understands.

And then there’s Mike.

Mike loves to teach El about the stars in the night sky. He’ll hike to the cabin with his telescope strapped to his back and set it up in the back. Together, they’ll look up into the universe, which El is just starting to realize is so much more vast and infinite than she could ever have imagined. Mike teaches her about the different planets, galaxies, and ‘constellations’, which she learns are patterns that stars make. She loves to find the patterns in the sky, and to learn their names.

El hasn’t told Mike this, but the dots on his face remind her of constellations. ( _“They’re called freckles, El,” Mike had said with a smile, as she had traced them gently with her fingertips._ ) The patterns she finds within his freckles take her breath away just as much as the ones in the night sky.

Even now, sitting so close to him, El can see the constellations in Mike’s skin. And if he turns his head just a _little bit_ , the sun shines in his eyes and turns them into stars. When he smiles and laughs, El can’t help but do the same. After all, seeing Mike happy makes _her_ happy.

El leans in and props her chin up on Mike’s shoulder, and he turns to look at her in surprise.

“I love you,” she hears herself say. Almost in slow motion, she watches as Mike’s eyes widen and his breath catches in his throat. This close to him, she can see every individual star on his face that makes up the constellation, and El just wants to sit there and stare at them for the rest of her life.

“...I love you too,” Mike breathes out after a moment, before tilting her head up and pressing his lips to hers.

 

* * *

 

It’s late now, Joyce thinks. So late that everyone else has gone home and it’s just her and the boys now. She’s at the sink, washing all the plates and mugs that have been used, and trying not to let her mind wander. That’s dangerous territory, after all.

“Mom.”

This used to be Bob’s favorite mug, Joyce thinks suddenly as she realizes what she’s holding. It’s blue, and it’s got a picture of Chewbacca; she thinks one of Will’s friends must have left it here at some point and it’s just found a home here.

“Mom.”

She can see it clearly now; the last time they’d had coffee together, sitting at the table. The sun had been shining, and she could hear the birds singing in the distance. It was a Sunday morning, and they had slept in. Will had spent the night at the Wheelers’, and Jonathan had already left for the day, so they had the house to themselves. They’d made love in the early morning, slowly and leisurely, just enjoying each other. After, Bob had made her breakfast and had cleaned up too. He wanted to pamper her, he’d said, because she had enough to worry about.

“ _Mom_.”

Joyce jerks with a sharp gasp as Jonathan gently takes the mug out of her hands. He shuts the water off, and dries her hands off slowly with a dish towel, while she can only stand there and stare numbly.

“Don’t worry about the dishes, I’ll take care of them,” he says, carefully guiding her away from the kitchen and to her bedroom. She sits down heavily at the edge of her bed, as Jonathan picks out her favorite pyjama set. It’s a heavy and soft flannel top and bottom, and Joyce has said before how luxurious it feels. Distantly, she notes that her hands are shaking. They’ve been doing that a lot, lately.

Jonathan tells her that he’ll be right back, and to put on her pyjamas. Then, he shuts the door behind him, and Joyce is once again left alone with her thoughts. Some days, all she sees is Bob’s death. Him being ripped to pieces by that monster, hearing his screams echo in her brain. Other days, all she sees are the happier moments with him. Going out to lunch with him, or watching a movie with him and the boys, or dancing in his arms on Halloween night.

Joyce honestly doesn’t know which is worse.

There’s a knock at her door, and she hears Jonathan say, “Mom, are you dressed yet?”. She looks down at herself and is vaguely surprised to find herself in her pyjamas; she doesn’t really remember changing. The door opens a crack, and Jonathan peeks his head in before sighing in relief. He opens it more, and Will comes in behind him.

Jonathan goes to turn down the covers on her bed, while Will takes a warm washcloth and gently wipes his mother’s makeup off. Joyce feels like she should be helping him, but she _just can’t_ find the energy to do so. She’s just so tired, all the fucking time. It’s so hard to sleep in this bed now; it’s too big and empty for just her.

Will sets the washcloth aside when he’s done, and then reaches his hands around her. Joyce thinks he might be hugging her, when she realizes that he’s actually taking all the pins out of her hair that had been holding it tightly in place. Her hair falls down to her shoulders, and she feels just a little bit lighter with it unrestrained.

“C’mon mom, time for bed,” Will says, pulling her to her feet. He’s a little taller now, she thinks, and his hair’s getting longer. He guides her to her side of the bed, and she sits back down. Before she can swing her feet up, she hears Jonathan murmur, “hold on”. Her eldest son gets down on his knees in order to put socks on Joyce’s feet; they know she likes to sleep with socks on. The sight of his head bowed, his hands gentle as he slowly puts on her socks brings tears to Joyce’s eyes.

“There we go,” Jonathan says with a small smile to her. Joyce swings her feet up and into her bed, and Will tucks her blankets in around her. Jonathan arranges the pillows around her one last time, and then he gently runs a hand on her head.

For some reason, that just does it for Joyce. The dam inside her breaks, and every single feeling that she’s been pushing to the back of her mind for the past two weeks floods her body. Joyce starts crying so hard, like she hasn’t done since she was a child. She had told herself that she needed to be strong, for the boys’ sake, but she’s realizing now that they don’t need her to be strong and shut herself off. They just need her to be _human_.

“Don’t leave me alone,” Joyce says in between sobs. Jonathan’s got her in his arms, holding her tightly and letting her cry herself out.

“We’re not going anywhere mom, promise,” Will says. He’s crawled into bed next to her, and holding her from the other side. She’s sandwiched between her sons, and Joyce realizes that her boys have more than enough strength to support her in her grief, just as she’s supported them all this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very sorry for the delay with posting guys, but this chapter honestly went through about five rewrites before i decided i was just tired of rereading it over and over lol. not sure why it gave me so much grief, but i'm hoping you like it!
> 
> that said, updates will be longer from now on, as i'm starting a new job in a couple of days so that'll mean less free time. but i WILL try and keep a semi consistent schedule with posting!
> 
> happy turkey day to my american peeps! <3


	6. day twenty

_day twenty_

Steve wakes up with a sharp intake of air, automatically throwing his hand over his bed to clutch his nail-ridden baseball bat like a lifeline. He can feel his heart pounding frantically inside his chest as he relives the sheer _terror_ he’d felt as he’d prepared himself to face an army of Demodogs with nothing but a bat in his hands.

In real life, he and the kids survived to fight another day. In his dreams, though…

If Steve closes his eyes again, he can almost feel the sharp teeth of those monsters tearing through his flesh, and feel the burning agony of death. He can hear his own screams echoing inside his mind, until they choke off, and he is torn down into nothing.

So Steve doesn’t close his eyes anymore.

It’s times like these, when the nightmares are at their worst, that Steve misses Nancy the most. Before, he would have just driven over to her house and snuck in through the window. She would always keep it unlocked just for him. Steve would tiptoe quietly through her room and toe off his shoes, and Nancy would just lift a corner of her blankets to let him in to her bed.

Sometimes, she would just hold him tightly like she would never let him go. Other times, she would help him escape his own mind with her hands and her mouth exploring every inch of his body. Steve misses her warmth by his side, misses that reassurance that no matter what happened, there was always someone else beside him to help fight his battles.

But now, he’s alone.

His parents are never home, and it’s never bothered Steve before. Now though, the giant, empty house feels like a mausoleum, home to a past life that he barely remembers. Before, there had been house party after house party, and different girls (and sometimes, guys) going in and out of his room at every hour of the night. He’d been King Steve, reigning over his little kingdom and his subjects. He’d been drunk with power, knowing that his opinion and favor carried so much more weight than everyone else.

But then, he had to go and fall head over heels in love with Nancy Wheeler. And well, you know the rest.

Steve scrubs his hand over his face, and props himself up on an elbow to look at his clock. It’s almost 6:00, which means he has a valid excuse to just get up early and get ready for school. Plus, he’s gotten into the habit of dropping Dustin and the kids off at school too, so he has to leave his house even earlier than usual.

Through his daily morning rituals, the shower, the shave, the hair grooming, etc., Steve manages to piece together the mask that he wears while out in the world. Gone is the terror and out comes the cocky confidence that he wears around himself like a shield, just something to help him hold on to his sanity.

Dustin’s house is first, mainly because its closest, but also because the little shit is secretly Steve’s favorite out of all of them. (He’d rather die than admit to any of that, of course.) Next is the Sinclair house, and after that comes the Wheeler house. Then, even though it’s _way_ out of his usual route, he’ll swing by to pick up Max. Steve knows that she hates riding with Billy, and who can blame her, really? Billy, apparently, doesn’t give a shit either way anymore, and Max is just happy to have the least amount of contact with him as is possible.

Then, it’s off to drop the midgets off at middle school. His car is full of loud and talkative pre-teens, all trying to talk over each other about whatever happened in their lives in the last 12 hours since he’s seen them. And as surprising as it may be, it helps. He trades jokes and witty barbs with the kids, and slowly, Steve can feel himself _really_ relax for the first time since he woke up in the grips of his nightmare this morning.

Steve gets into the carpool line of cars, waving and shooting casual grins at the soccer moms in line with their own kids. They’ve gotten used to seeing him by now, and some of the moms will wave back or honk their horns cheerfully. As he finally pulls up to the front of the school, Steve puts the car in park and gets out to supervise and to make sure these idiots don’t actually trample each other while getting out of his car, and because he needs to help Dustin get his giant ass science project out from the trunk of his car.

“Why couldn’t you have just picked something small to do your project on, like the atom, or something?” Steve asks Dustin with a grunt as he lifts the heavy thing out and hands it to him.

“Uh, because it’s not as fun, duh,” Dustin replies with an eye roll, and Steve smacks him lightly on his head.

“Get out of here. Have a good day, don’t pick any fights with interdimensional monsters, but if you do…?” Steve trails off warningly.

“You’ll be the first one to know, promise,” Dustin replies promptly, flashing him a grin. Steve can’t help but smile back at the kid, and ruffles his hair. He waves one last time at Dustin and the others, and stays until he’s sure that they’re all inside the school before he gets into his car and drives off.

When Steve’s not having panic attacks concerning his nightmares and the trauma he’s gone through, he’s busy worrying about his future. It’s almost December now, and he _still_ hasn’t sent in a single college application. Truth be told, Steve just has no fucking clue what he wants to do with his life. A few months ago, he’d been convinced that his destiny was to marry Nancy and follow her wherever she wanted to go, before settling down back in Hawkins and starting their nuclear family. Obviously now, he has to rethink a few things.

He’s been doing better in his classes, and Steve’s pretty proud of that. Before, it had been for Nancy’s sake. He wanted her to be proud of him and his achievements in stuff other than sports. Now though, he’s found himself trying to be a better person not only for himself, but for the kids. He wants them to look at him and see him as a good role model, someone who always tries his best in life.

And if Steve’s being perfectly, 100% honest with himself, those kids are the only reason he hasn’t completely given up on himself yet.

 

* * *

 

 

Jonathan usually eats lunch in the library by himself.

It’s perfect, because he doesn’t have to deal with anyone in the world that he doesn’t _want_ to deal with. He usually settles in his favorite back corner with his food and a good book to pass the time. It’s peaceful, and more importantly, he doesn’t have to see the pitiful looks or the arrogant sneers thrown his way by his peers.

So imagine Jonathan’s surprise when he turns the corner and sees a sudden wrench thrown into his plans in the form of one Steve Harrington, sitting at _his_ table in _his_ favorite corner.

Jonathan stops dead in his tracks and can’t help but stare blatantly. Steve hasn’t seen him yet, as his head is bent over to study the papers in front of him intently.

To say that Jonathan’s feelings about Steve are complicated is such a vast understatement that it’s almost laughable.

Over the span of a year, Jonathan has gone from hating Steve Harrington’s guts with every fiber of his being, to grudgingly watching him become a better man at Nancy’s side, to trusting him with the lives of his brother and his best friends, to...potentially calling Steve a _friend_. And then of course, there’s still the guilt running through Jonathan’s veins for his role in breaking up Steve and Nancy.

There’s also yet another undercurrent of feelings simmering just below Jonathan’s skin; he’s been trying valiantly to ignore them, not wanting to think about what they mean. But sometimes…

Jonathan catches himself staring at Steve, at the curve of his back when he’s sitting in front of Jonathan in class, or the strong line of his jaw when he’s talking to the kids, or his long and lean frame if Jonathan catches him stretching.

(That last moment had happened right after Steve had played basketball. Steve had peeled off his sweaty shirt and arched his back, stretching his arms above his head. Jonathan had felt his mouth go as dry as the desert, and had immediately hightailed it out of the gym, hiding his furious blush as he went.)

There’s only one other person on Earth that’s managed to evoke similar reactions in Jonathan, and her name is Nancy Wheeler.

So, yeah. Complicated is an understatement.

Jonathan is suddenly wrenched out of his thoughts when Steve finally looks up from whatever he’s doing and spots him. Jonathan can see that Steve has the end of a pen caught between his teeth as talks around it.

“Oh hey, Byers. What’s up?”

He sounds so casual, it throws Jonathan through a loop. This is the first time they’ve been alone together since Nancy and Steve broke up. And Jonathan knows for a fact that Steve knows that he slept with Nancy, she told him just as much.

“I...you’re in my seat,” Jonathan hears himself say, and immediately feels the need to crawl into a deep, dark hole and never come out.

Steve only raises an eyebrow, and with a slight smirk says, “I don’t see your name on it anywhere.”

“I-I meant…,” Jonathan takes a deep breath. “I usually sit here during lunch.”

“Oh,” is all Steve says as he looks around with surprise written on his face. “I swear I didn’t know, I wasn’t trying to be a dick or anything.”

“Oh, okay,” Jonathan says, and then the boys fall victim to the most awkward of silences. He just doesn’t know what to do with himself or where to look, a fresh wave of guilt washing over him and freezing him in place.

“Well…you just gonna stand there or are you gonna sit already?” Steve asks, and Jonathan looks back up at him. He hadn’t noticed Steve move over to the chair next to him, freeing up Jonathan’s usual spot.

The sudden and unexpected gesture has Jonathan blinking in surprise, before hesitantly moving to sit next to Steve. The other boy moves his stuff out of the way so that Jonathan has room to set his own stuff down on the table, slowly unpacking his lunch and books.

“Are you...doing homework?” Jonathan asks him finally, because honestly, he doesn’t want to spend a whole hour sitting next to Steve in an awkward silence. Steve snorts and rubs a hand over his face.

“I fucking wish; no, I’m working on college apps,” Steve says with a deep sigh. Jonathan looks over Steve’s shoulder; he’s got applications to about 4 different schools scattered in front of him, each with its own college essay to boot. It’s at this moment that Jonathan realizes that he knows next to nothing about Steve Harrington, other than his name, where he lives, and that he can be a reckless idiot.

“What do you want to major in?” Jonathan asks him, and Steve laughs humorlessly.

“I don’t know, man. I don’t even know why the hell I’m applying to these stupid schools in the first place; god knows I won’t get in.”

Jonathan frowns at him, then looks back at the applications. The schools that he’s applying to sound familiar, and after a minute Jonathan knows why. They’re all schools that Nancy wants to go to: Columbia, NYU, Stanford, UCLA…

“I...didn’t know you wanted to leave Hawkins,” Jonathan says quietly, and Steve looks at him in surprise.

“I... _don’t_ want to leave,” Steve says after a moment, and the two boys just stare at each other, looking as if they’re both coming to realizations at the same time.

As confusing and weird as his feelings about Steve are, Jonathan can honestly say that he doesn’t want Steve to leave either. He’s seen how he is with the Party, and especially with Dustin and Will. Steve’s taken those kids under his wing, so to speak, and him leaving would devastate them.

“You know…,” and Jonathan might be overstepping here, but fuck it honestly. “Hawkins University is only about a 45 minute drive from here. You could commute, if you want to, and still see the kids whenever.”

Steve looks at him with an unreadable expression on his face, before looking back down at the half filled college apps in front of him. Jonathan looks back down at his lunch, his appetite gone as his stomach churns with sudden nerves.

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan blurts out suddenly, unable to hold it it in any longer.

“For what?”

“For...everything! For...what Nancy and I did to you. I don’t know what she told you, but I swear we didn’t mean to hurt you. You and I haven’t had the greatest relationship in the past, but...you didn’t deserve that.”

Jonathan can’t bring himself to look up at Steve, still staring down at his uneaten lunch.

“Yeah, I did,” he hears Steve say after a while, and Jonathan looks up at him with wide eyes. “I deserved it. I was a shitty boyfriend to Nancy, and I was a terrible person to you.”

Sitting this close to him, Jonathan takes a second to _really_ look at Steve; at the dark circles under his eyes, at the faded but still there scars from Billy’s attack, at the defeated slump in his shoulders. Jonathan has a feeling that he’s seeing a side of Steve that the other boy usually keeps hidden from the rest of the world, especially after everything that they’ve gone through.

“Hey, no, stop that,” Jonathan says with a frown. “If you want to consider us even, then we’re even. But we’ve both done some shitty things to each other, so stop trying to hoard all the blame and guilt for yourself.”

Steve huffs out a small laugh. “Fair enough, Byers. So where does that leave us?”

Jonathan purses his lips in thought. “Uh...friends?”

Steve laughs for real this time, his eyes finally lighting up. “Okay. Friends. Makes sense, considering I basically live at your house now.”

“You and everyone else we know,” Jonathan says with a smile and a shake of his head. He watches as some of the tension in Steve’s shoulders loosens, and with it he can feel some of his own guilt fade away.

 

* * *

 

 

Nancy had never really appreciated having so many people around her who also had access to cars, until one by one she had lost all of them. Now, if she doesn’t have access to her dad’s car, she has to take the bus everywhere. She doesn’t dare ask either Steve or Jonathan for rides anymore, even though she knows they would say yes, complications aside.

The self-enforced solitude had at first been excruciating. She’s never considered herself a ‘loner’; there had always been _someone_ else there for her to talk to. But as she had taken the time to really think about it, Nancy had to concede that Steve was right. She needed to figure out who she was, who she _is_ , as a person. Without being defined by the person next to her.

Once she got past that, the loneliness got easier to bear with day by day. That’s not to say that she’s _happy_ , or anything like that. She still mourns Steve’s loss like a piece of herself is missing. She hasn’t let herself have any extended contact with Jonathan, either; another loss there.

But she’s dealing. So there’s that.

Nancy's in town, walking to the nearest bus stop, and hunching her shoulders against the biting wind. She has to turn her head against a particularly strong gust, when she spots the sign in the window of the _Hawkins Post_ building.

**PART TIME WORK NEEDED. APPLY INSIDE.**

Hmm. Nancy has been considering getting an after school job for a while now. God knows she could use the extra cash, and she could start saving up for college supplies. And it really couldn’t hurt to apply; worst case scenario, she just doesn’t get the job. No harm, no foul.

With a shrug, Nancy takes a detour and heads into the _Post_. It’s warm and cozy inside, thankfully; it’s a small place. There’s an empty desk up front and to the side. The walls are mostly bookshelves, containing books of all sizes. There are also stacks on top of stacks of newspapers all over the damn place, making the space seem smaller than it already is. There’s a doorway at the back that seems to lead to a hallway, and possibly more offices.

“...Hello?” Nancy calls out after a minute of just standing around and waiting for someone to appear. The place looks deserted, which is stupid because it’s the middle of the day and the door was open.

“I saw the sign in the window for the part time job, and I wanted to apply,” she calls out, venturing out further into the office. Nancy looks around in wonder; she can’t help but be charmed by the place.

“So you’re looking for a job, huh."

Nancy stifles a scream with her hand as she whips around to find the source of the voice. There’s another door in between bookcases that she hadn’t seen the first time around. There’s a lady standing in the doorway, leaning against it. She looks like she’s in her late 30’s-early 40’s, with long black hair and bright eyes. She’s wearing dark, burgundy colored trousers and a cream colored blouse, black heels, and _suspenders_ of all things, lord.

“I...y-yes, ma’am,” Nancy stutters out, and the lady snorts.

“Keep calling me ‘ma’am’, and I promise you won’t get the job. Sit down, kid. What’s your name?”

“Nancy Wheeler, ma--,” she manages to cut herself off just in time, and Nancy thinks she almost sees the lady nod approvingly.

“Nice to meet ‘ya, Nancy Wheeler. My name’s Maria Ramos, and I run the _Hawkins Post_.”

“Oh,” is all Nancy can say, eyes widening. She hadn’t been expecting to meet the top boss here, after all. But she manages to recover herself quick enough, shaking her head a little before sitting up straight. “So, you are hiring after all?”

“We are,” Maria confirms as she hops up to sit on the empty desk across from where Nancy’s sitting. “You got any journalism experience?”

“I...no,” Nancy admits with a grimace.

“Do you have _any_ work experience at all?”

“...No.”

“I see,” Maria sighs, running her fingers through her hair. Nancy can feel her chance at a job slipping between her fingers, and tries a last ditch attempt at salvaging herself any way she can.

“I may not have any experience, but I swear I’ll learn quick, whatever you need me to do. I-I can clean up around here, or make copies, or even just be a coffee girl, I don’t mind at all!”

Nancy doesn’t really know why she’s suddenly fighting so hard to try and get this job, just that it feels important, deep down inside. It feels like this is a turning point, somehow, and that she has one chance to get this right.

Maria takes a moment to just look at her, and Nancy does her best to not squirm under her gaze. Her expression is unreadable, and Nancy just tries to keep her face as neutral as possible and to sit up as straight as she can.

“Why’s a girl like you even trying to get a job in the first place? Shouldn’t you be spending your free time at cheerleading practice, or whatever?” Maria finally asks, and Nancy can’t help but snort and shake her head.

“Believe me, I’m no cheerleader. I just...I _know_ how powerful journalism can be when it comes to setting the truth free,” Nancy finds herself saying, sending a quick thought to Murray and his insane determination (and just insanity in general). “And I know that whatever my purpose in life is, I’m not gonna find it in the stupid high school hierarchy.”

Maria snorts. “Well said, kid.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and looks down, and Nancy’s heart sinks. She didn’t do enough to snag the job, it looks like. It’s weird; in the short time that she’s been in the _Post’s_ offices, this is the most that Nancy hasn’t felt jittery and uncomfortable in her own skin, living with a constant presence of guilt and shame over her actions. This is a neutral space, somewhere where her mistakes haven’t affected the other people around her. Maria doesn’t know a damn thing about her, and it’s refreshing. Somehow, Nancy had already started looking forward to coming in and working with her, and learning by her side. Looks like that’s something that’ll stay a daydream for now.

“Okay,” Maria finally sighs, clapping her hands together once. Nancy blinks and looks back up at her.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do. I don’t know why, but my instincts are telling me to take a chance on you, Nancy Wheeler.”

Nancy...can’t believe what she’s fucking hearing.

“I...got the job?”

“Yes, you did,” Maria says with a small smile, and Nancy can’t help but laugh and jump up out of her seat as Maria grins at her now, small dimples visible in her cheeks.

‘We’ll start you here, after school or on the weekends of course, a couple of times during the week. Starting rate is $4.00 an hour. We’ll get you on admin stuff, answering phones and paperwork and other stuff that I hate,” Maria says with an eye roll. Nancy couldn’t care less at this point because _she has a fucking job!_

“Who else works here with you?” she asks, considering she hasn’t seen a single other person here.

“I’ve got a few other journos out and about, you’ll see them every once in a while. I usually tell ‘em that if they’re here in the office too much then they’re not doing their job.”

“Okay...okay,” Nancy says, taking a deep breath before laughing again. “Thank you so much, Ms. Ramos, I appreciate the opportunity!”

“Everyone calls me Maria, Ms. Ramos makes me feel old,” Maria says with a shake of her head. “Don’t make me regret this, Wheeler.”

“You won’t, Maria,” Nancy says firmly. “I swear I won’t let you down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. 80% of this chapter was a love letter to Steve Harrington, and I've decided to embrace the SoccerMom!Steve aesthetic with every fiber of my being.
> 
> 2\. I googled the minimum wage in the 80's, and apparently it was at around $3.35, like jfc that blows my mindddd
> 
> 3\. I'm sorry again for the long time in between chapters, but I'm wrapping up training for the new job this week, so hopefully I can get my schedule stabalized enough to schedule in time to write more often!
> 
> 4\. Wanted to shout out to every single person who has taken the time to drop a quick kudos or comment, every time i get a notif it makes my day, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!


	7. day twenty six

_day twenty-six_

Thankfully, it’s not too hard to convince Hopper and Steve and Jonathan to take everyone to go get ice cream after the Snowball. All Will and El had had to do was stare at them with wide eyes and hopeful smiles and they were off. The kids have found that the adults are still willing to indulge those two after all the shit that they’ve been through, and Will and El are absolutely devious enough to use it for their own gain, much to the delight of their friends.

Dustin laughs when their weird little group of friends and chaperones enter the little ice cream parlor, and he realizes that they take up the majority of the space. The workers behind the counter stare bemusedly as Hopper, Steve, and Jonathan push together tables to try and sit all of them, and the kids rush to the counter to stare at the ice cream behind the glass.

Dustin sees El out of the corner of his eye, her hands pressed against the glass and staring with wide eyes. “Rocky road is my favorite,” he tells her with a knowing nod.

“That’s ‘cause you’re a weirdo,” Lucas says, craning his neck to look over Dustin’s shoulder. “Strawberry is the best, hands down.”

“Ew, no,” Mike says, wrinkling his nose. “Don’t poison her mind like that. Mint chocolate chip is the way to go.”

“You’re all losers,” Max deadpans, shoving her way to the front of the group and putting a protective arm around El’s shoulders. “C’mon El, we’re getting chocolate.”

They all somehow manage to get what they want, and descend on the giant table that the guys have cobbled together. Dustin ends up sitting between Jonathan and Nancy, and across from Max, who is happily sandwiched between Will and Lucas, the others in their Party scattered around their giant table.

Okay, so the Snowball hadn’t exactly gone as Dustin had initially planned, but it wasn’t a total bust really. He still isn’t exactly sure how he’d managed to snag a dance with someone as pretty and popular as Nancy, especially in front of the whole school, but Dustin had managed not to step on her feet and keep his cool. And Nancy is a cool chick in general, so.

Dustin had been slightly worried about telling Steve about that, what with his and Nancy’s issues that he still refuses to talk about. But Steve had just smiled and patted Dustin’s shoulder, and if Steve had had a slightly sad look about him, Dustin hadn’t noticed.

“Hey, uh, guys?” Hopper calls out from the head of the table, where he’s sitting next to El and Joyce on either side of him. Dustin glances at El and sees her smiling widely up at Hop.

The rest of the table quiets down, looking curiously at him. Dustin realizes that Hop looks kinda nervous, which is weird because Hop is never nervous, like ever. He sees El grab Hop’s hand discreetly and give it a squeeze.

“So, uh, I figured you guys should know...El’s been officially adopted. By, uh, me.”

The table goes dead silent for about ten seconds, before everyone just erupts, cheering and whistling all around. Dustin sees Mike throw his arms around El cheerfully, as the other kids throw napkins in the air as makeshift confetti.

“Alright, alright, calm down you heathens, before you get us all thrown out of here,” Hop says gruffly, even as they can all see the small smile on his face. “We’re gonna try to get her enrolled in school for next September. She’s gonna have to test in to your grade, and it’s gonna have to be a group effort to get her up to speed academically speaking.”

Hop looks each of them straight in the eye to make his point, and Dustin and the others nod in determination.

“Hop and I are going to try and homeschool El as much as we can, but it would really help if you guys pitched in with your old school books and material,” Joyce says with a soft smile at El.

“We can set up a tutoring schedule,” Nancy offers, and Steve and Jonathan nod in agreement. “And who knows, it might even help get some of your grades up,” she says with a cheeky grin to Mike, who just sticks his tongue out at her.

“There’s something else I need to talk about,” Hop says, lowering his voice with a glance to the ice cream counter. The workers that had been behind the counter have gone to the back of the store, Dustin notes, so there isn’t a chance they’ll be overheard.

“We’re gonna start integrating El slowly to the town as my adopted daughter. However, her legal name is now Jane Hopper, and that’s what everyone will know her by. You guys can still call her El between yourselves, but when you’re in public you have to call her Jane. We can’t afford any questions about where she came from, you know that.”

Hop’s glare is deadly and aimed at almost everyone at the table, and Dustin knows he’s not the only one swallowing nervously.

There’s a minute of tense silence, with everyone looking at Hop with slight apprehension, when El breaks the silence.

“My name is...Jane...Hopper,” she says slowly, almost in wonder.

“Hi Jane,” Mike says suddenly, and the others look at him in confusion. “My name’s Mike. Nice to meet ya.”

Mike sticks out his hand for her to shake and she looks at him in confusion.

“We shake hands when we meet new people, El-uhh, sorry, _Jane_ ,” Dustin calls out, correcting himself quickly when Hop’s glare swings towards him. El blinks at the both of them before shyly taking Mike’s hand and shaking it once.

“I’ll teach ya how to shake hands in a way that puts the fear of God into men,” Steve quips from his corner of the table and Hopper snorts.

“I think those are all of the announcements for today,” Hopper says wryly. “Now eat your damn ice cream before it melts.”

 

* * *

 

“Um, Will? Are you okay?” Max quietly asks the smaller boy awkwardly. She winces internally to herself; she’d been debating for the last ten minutes on whether or not to try and talk to him.

Ever since they’d left the Snowball, Max had noticed Will kind of draw into himself a little and quiet down, looking pensive and avoiding everyone’s gaze. Max doesn’t think that anyone else has picked up on it yet, although she has seen Mike shooting curious looks at Will every now and again.

Will blinks in surprise at her for a sec before turning red, to Max’s surprise. “Y-yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Now that sounds extremely fake, Max thinks, raising an eyebrow in skepticism but saying nothing. Will purses his lips and looks down, chewing slowly on his ice cream cone.

Max shrugs and goes back to her ice cream. All around her, the others are having about twenty different conversations with each other, and it’s all chaos and raised voices and laughter and…

... _family_.

Max resolutely doesn’t let tears spring to her eyes, instead choosing to devour her ice cream with relish as a distraction. It’s been a while since she’s felt the comfort and security that comes with being surrounded by family, knowing that you’re safe and warm and loved.

“I...didn’t like dancing with Jennifer,” Max hears Will mutter, and she frowns.

“Was she a crappy dancer? Did she step on your toes?”

“...No. She danced fine.” Max glances at Will, and is surprised to see he looks miserable.

She takes a quick glance at the others sitting near them; Dustin, Steve, Mike, and Lucas are in a heated debate about the next DnD campaign so they’re definitely not paying attention. Jonathan, Nancy, and El are talking about school and telling her about it, as El hangs on to their every word. Hopper and Joyce are talking about something down at the end of the table so they can’t hear either.

“Then...what’s the problem?” Max asks Will uncertainly, and he frowns.

“I...don’t know. She’s pretty and nice and she smells really good...and I don’t like her,” Will says with a sigh, finishing off the last of his ice cream cone.

“Well I mean, no one’s forcing you to like her,” Max begins awkwardly. She’s never felt like she’s good at talking or giving advice to other people. But hey, she was the one who started the conversation in the first place. May as well see it through.

“Kinda feels like it sometimes,” Will says quietly. “I mean, everyone I know is dating someone.”

He casts a meaningful glance at the rest of the table, and Max snorts.

“Not everyone, I don’t think. Lucas and I aren’t really at the whole ‘dating’ stage yet,” Max says, ignoring the blush rising in her cheeks. “And unless Dustin’s suddenly become really good at keeping secrets from us, he’s definitely not dating anyone. God only knows what’s going on with Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan, and Mike and El are just….”

Max trails off and together with Will they glance down the table at the couple in question. Mike and El may not actually be talking to each other at the moment, but even Max can see that it doesn’t make them any less connected. Mike and El sit pressed tightly against each other from shoulder to knee, their hands intertwined together and resting on the table top. Whenever one moves, the other also moves to accommodate them automatically, as natural as breathing.

“...they’re just on a different planet than the rest of us,” Max finishes her sentence, and Will chuckles. Max can see that he’s lightened up a little, some of the misery in his eyes gone now. She’s glad; she may not know Will as closely as the others, but she still considers him a friend.

“You’ve been through the shitter these past couple of years,” Max says bluntly, and Will grins at her language. “I think you should just take it easy and not worry about dating anyone. You have plenty of time to find your person.”

“Yeah...you’re right,” Will says with a small smile. “Thanks, Max. You’re a good friend.”

“Anytime,” she says with a breezy grin, glad to have been able to help him feel better.

 

* * *

 

Lucas has been on cloud nine all night. Even now, he knows he has the dopiest grin on his face and he couldn’t care less because Max had kissed him!

“Someone looks like he’s had a good night,” his dad says wryly when he opens the front door to let Lucas in, waving back to Steve in his car as the younger man backs out of their driveway, satisfied that Lucas was safely home.

“The best night,” Lucas agrees readily, the taste of strawberries in his mouth and the warmth of Max’s hand squeezing his hand in goodbye before he had gotten out of the car.

“Well you have to tell us about it,” his mom calls from the kitchen.

“Ahh…,” Lucas rubs the back of his neck in sudden embarrassment. “I mean...the gym looked nice, I guess. And they played good music.”

“You dance with a lot of people?” His dad asks innocently, trying and failing to keep the smile off his face as his mom pokes her head curiously through the doorway. 

Lucas mumbles something under his breath, his parents craning their heads to hear him.

“Son, you’re going to have to speak up, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

“I _said_...I only danced with Max,” Lucas finally says, rolling his eyes at the knowing look in his dad’s eyes as his mother grins.

“Miss Max, huh?” she says teasingly. “I guess you have been spending a lot of time with her recently.”

“With all of my friends, mom,” Lucas corrects her, shrugging off his suit jacket and draping it across the back of his couch before throwing himself on it.

“So...I guess you like like Max, huh? Since she’s the only one you danced with and all.” His dad sits next to him on the couch, patting his shoulder.

“I...I guess. I mean, she’s pretty awesome,” Lucas says, grinning down at his knees. “She’s smart, and funny, and brave, a-and pretty, and just... _amazing_.”

Lucas completely misses his parents glancing at each other with surprise.

“Boy, you have it bad,” his mom finally announces, pullin Lucas out of his thoughts of Max.

“ _Mom_.”

“I’m serious, Lucas,” she says, coming over to sit on his other side. “Maybe you wanna ask Max if she wants to come over for dinner one night?”

Lucas looks up at her in surprise.

“Really?”

“Sure. We have got to meet the girl who stole our son’s heart after all,” she grins when Lucas groans in embarrassment again, his father chuckling alongside him.

Still, Lucas can’t help the pleased little smile that lights up his face. The thought of Max sitting at his family’s table and eating dinner with them sends an inexplicable warmth through his body.

“Her parents can come too, we’d love to meet them.”

“ _No_ ,” Lucas says immediately, all the warmth he’d been feeling swept away in a wave of pure panic. He can’t even comprehend into words why he knows that that would be a very bad idea; it’s just instinct and the one clamoring thought that fills his head.

 _Protect Max_.

“Well, why not?” His mother asks with a frown.

“I-I just...Max and I aren’t even dating yet, and you’re making a big deal out of everything,” Lucas says hurriedly, getting up off the couch to go grab his suit jacket.

“Lucas-,”

“N-no! You just don’t understand!” Lucas bursts out, feeling his heart start to go into overtime.

“Then help us understand, Lucas,” his father says gently. “Why don’t you want us to meet Max’s parents?”

“They’re just...they’re not nice people,” Lucas admits miserably. “It’s better for M—for everyone...if we just leave them alone.”

Lucas doesn’t give them a chance to respond, grabbing his suit jacket and running upstairs to his room. He changes out of his suit and into pyjamas, and goes to crawl into bed when he spots his walkie talkie on his desk.

Lucas knows there’s a good chance that Max is asleep by now, but he figures that it wouldn’t hurt to try and reach out to her anyway. She might still be awake, and he can tell her about his conversation with his parents. He’s got butterflies in his stomach just thinking about asking her to come to dinner at his house with his family, and he can ask her if he did the right thing in preventing his parents from doing something that might hurt Max in the long run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My laptop went off to laptop heaven a while back so i am posting this from my phone. Desktop users, pls let me know if the formatting is funky or anything, I’ll try and fix as best I can. 
> 
> My favorite ice cream flavor is cookies and cream haha, so I don’t agree with any of the kids on best ice cream flavor. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking around, guys!


	8. day thirty one

_day thirty one_

Will is sitting at the kitchen table, working on his math homework with El and walking her through some of the problems. Her eyes are intent on his paper, trying in her own way to understand and learn.

The kids had decided to pick a subject to each work with El with. Will had elected for math, Dustin for science, Lucas for history, Mike for english, and Max, much to everyone’s amusement, for P.E.

( _“P.E. isn’t even a real subject!” Dustin had screeched at her._

 _“She’s never even played dodgeball or anything like that in her life! She has to learn how to do this stuff too!” Max had retorted._ )

El _is_ learning, slowly but surely. Those assholes at the Hawkins Lab had taught her how to read and write, so at least they weren’t starting from ground zero. She listens and absorbs the information like a sponge, never seeming to get tired of it.

As he watches her diligently take notes from his textbook, Will admires El’s dedication. For all that she’s been through, she hasn’t let it stop her from enjoying her new life and trying to live it to the fullest she can. She tackles everything new with energy and courage.

Will looks at El and he feels envious.

“I wish I could be like you,” Will says softly, and El glances over at him with a raised brow.

“Why?”

“Because you’re not scared of anything.”

Will can admit to himself that he’s nowhere near recovered. He still has nightmares where he wakes up in a cold sweat; he still sleeps with his lights on at night; he still gets irrationally angry at the people around him sometimes.

He’s also found himself scared of certain... _feelings_. Like how he finds himself ignoring the long and pretty hair of the girls sitting in front of him in class to stare at the guys in class and their smiles.

The difference now is, Will has stopped isolating himself. He’ll go and wake up his brother or his mother when he wakes up in the middle of the night. His friends are patient with him when he loses his temper or when he tries to retreat into his shell; they refuse to let him push everyone away.

“...The Mind Flayer,” she reminds him gently, and Will shakes his head.

“But I mean, you _still_ went and faced it head on and _won_ ,” Will stresses, and he figures that’s the root of his problems. He’d also faced the Mind Flayer, only he’d _lost_.

“I wasn’t strong enough to fight him,” he says miserably, as El’s brows knit together in a frown. “If I were, no one would have died.”

El frowns deeply and stares at the table, as if she’s trying to find the right words. Will drops his gaze back down to his open textbook, the numbers wavering from the sudden tears in his eyes. Will’s been crying a lot more too, mainly because he’s realized Mike was right; he needs to let himself grieve for all the lives lost, instead of letting the feelings fester inside of him like poison.

“I... _didn’t_ win,” El finally says quietly, and Will’s head snaps up to meet her gaze.

“What are you talking about, of course you did. Hopper said so.”

“I didn’t kill it,” El says slowly. “I locked it away...but it’s still alive.”

Will can feel the beginnings of a panic attack rearing its ugly head, but he ruthlessly pushes the feeling away because right now, El needs him. And for the first time, he can see the fear and exhaustion in her eyes, similar to what he sees when he looks in the mirror.

“Is that what’s keeping you up at night? That the Mind Flayer might come back?”

“Yes,” she whispers, putting her head in her hands. Will doesn’t hesitate, pulling her in for a tight hug.

“It’s _gone_ , El. It’s gone, and it can’t hurt us ever again,” Will whispers in her hair fervently, hoping and praying with all of his heart that what he’s saying is true.

“Promise?” she asks in a small voice, muffled by his shoulder, and Will’s heart breaks for his friend, someone who he considers more and more like a sister with every passing day, and the note of desperation in her voice.

“Promise.”

 

* * *

 

“This is your fault,” Mike mutters into his tissue, as he glares at Nancy. She rolls her eyes at him from her place on the couch.

“You were the one who started coughing and spreading germs everywhere first,” she retorts, before sneezing into her own handful of tissues.

Mike’s head feels like it’s about to explode, and he hasn’t been able to breathe properly for a few days now. He’s been spiking a fever on and off since last night too. Nancy had caught whatever he’d had not long after, and today, their mother had them both on house arrest.

Mike had tried to fight his mother on it, trying to convince her that he was fine...right up until Nancy had pointed out that the only reason he wanted to leave the house was to see El, and that there was a very big chance that he’d get her sick too.

(Assuming, of course, that Hopper would ever let Mike get close enough to El while sick with a cold.)

Mike and Nancy were both well aware that Mike would rather chew off his own arm than to hurt El in any way, so with the most dramatic eye roll he could muster, Mike had quieted down any protests.

“I can’t believe I had to call out sick to work,” Nancy moans, putting her head in her hands pitifully. “Maria must hate me.”

A couple of years ago, Mike would have wholeheartedly agreed with her just to mess with Nancy. Now though, he just sighs, saying, “You’re overreacting, she doesn’t hate you. Probably likes you more for not trying to get her sick.”

Nancy doesn’t reply, merely peeking through her fingers at her younger brother. Mike notices her watching him and turns faintly pink, burrowing deeper into his blankets and trying to fight away the chill that comes with another spike in his fever.

While Nancy has the couch to herself, Mike chose to settle into his and El’s fort, as he likes to think of it as. He has one of her favorite blankets wrapped around his shoulders, smelling faintly of pine and sweetness, a scent unique to El alone. Mike closes his eyes and breathes in as deep as he can manage, imagining that she’s sitting next to him, her head on his shoulders and arms wrapped tight around each other.

“Hey, Mike…”

“Hmm?” Mike murmurs, eyes still shut tight.

“Do you think...I mean, would you ever…” he hears Nancy take a breath. “Could you ever love someone other than El?”

“What? God, no,” Mike says immediately, eyes snapping open to glare at his sister. “Why would you say that?!”

“ _Relax_ , would you?” Nancy retorts, hands raised. “I was just asking.”

Mike settles back into his blankets, looking at her with narrowed eyes. He has no idea what’s been going on with her, and figures there’s no harm in asking.

“What’s with you anyway? Thought you’d be happier now that you got a job or something.”

”I am happy with my new job,” she says quickly. “I just have some personal stuff to work out.”

“With Steve and Jonathan?” Mike asks quietly, and Nancy raises her brow at him.

“What do you know about it?”

“What everyone else does; that you and Steve broke up, you and Jonathan were dating for about two minutes, and then you broke up with _him_. So..nothing, really,” Mike says. Nancy stays quiet, looking down, and Mike just shrugs to himself. If his sister doesn’t want to talk about it, then whatever. All he knows is he remembers how miserable he felt without El, so he figures Nance might be feeling the same.

“I’m in love with the both of them,” she suddenly blurts out desperately, and Mike looks up at her with wide eyes.

Mike’s first and instinctive reaction is to tell her that she can’t be in love with two people at the same time. What stops him, however, is the misery and pain in her eyes. Mike is all too familiar with that look, having faced it every single day for a year in his own eyes. So he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“How do you know?”

“What?”

“That you love them both the same?”

“I…,” Nancy looks a little lost, and Mike decides she needs a little help.

“Like…,” Mike licks his lips and looks down at his hands, heart beating faster. What he’s about to say, he’s never told anyone, not even El. “When El was... _gone_ , I felt...like I couldn’t breathe. Like I would take a deep breath, and I just couldn’t get enough air. And I thought it would get better, but it never did. And I kept getting scared, like, is this how it’s going to be for the rest of my life without her?”

Mike doesn’t notice his voice cracking on the last word, or the tears sliding down his face, too lost in remembering day after day, night after night, struggling to catch his breath as he looked for El around every corner. He’d managed to hide the worst of his pain from everyone around him, masking it with anger and attitude.

“And then, that night at Will’s house, she walked in the door and it was like this...this _pressure_ in my chest went away, and I took my first deep breath in a year.”

A quiet sniffle interrupts Mike’s thoughts, and he looks up. Nancy’s crying, to his horror, clumsily wiping her tears with a wad of tissues.

“I-I didn’t mean to make you cry—,” Mike says hurriedly before she cuts him off.

“It feels like I’m missing part of myself.”

“W-what?”

“It feels like I’m missing part of myself,” she repeats. “All the time. Like, there’s just a giant, emptiness inside of me that just goes on forever and ever. And when I was with either of them, the emptiness would get smaller, but it wouldn’t go away completely. And now, with neither of them, I feel…,”

“Lost,” she and Mike say at the same time.

Nancy looks at Mike, and Mike looks at Nancy, and he finds himself really _seeing_ her for the first time. She’s not just some random being that happens to live in the same house as him, and happens to share the same parents as him. She’s his _sister_ , with emotions and problems just like his, and they’ve finally found some common ground.

“I’m sorry, Nance.”

“Yeah,” she says with a tight smile. “Me too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter can alternately be titled: siblings
> 
> as always, thanks for the love, i appreciate every single one of you!


	9. day thirty seven

_day thirty seven_

Hopper blinks awake blearily, checking his watch for the time.

_5:15 AM._

He doesn’t have to be up for work until 7, so with a frown, Hopper turns to his other side to try and get back to sleep when he spots the faint light coming from the living room. That can only mean one thing. With a weary sigh, he pulls himself out of bed and shuffles into the living room.

He expects to find El talking to Mike on her walkie talkie, or reading one of her books. They’re her usual go to activities when she can’t sleep from her nightmares. What he’s not expecting is to find her curled up on the sofa, blanket wrapped around her, as she thumbs through one of his old photo albums.

“How bad was it this time?” Hopper asks her gruffly in greeting. El’s eyes flicker up to his, and he watches as her mouth twists unhappily. Really bad, then. She doesn’t say anything, just returns to paging through the album. That’s fine; if there’s anything that Hopper’s learned about El so far, it’s that he can’t force her to talk if she doesn’t want to.

He shuffles over to sit down heavily next to her on the sofa, looking over her shoulder with interest. This album is full of photos from his teenage years and his twenties, from a fucking lifetime ago. He can barely recognize the young man staring out at him with a happy smile and eyes full of light and hope.

“No beard,” El murmurs, tracing his picture with her fingertip.

“I looked like a baby,” Hop mutters to her, and she huffs a laugh at him.

El leans against him, still slowly thumbing through the album, and Hopper wraps his arm around her. He’s hoping she’ll get sleepy enough to catch a few more hours of sleep before Joyce comes over for another tutoring session.

“Who’s that?” she asks quietly, and Hopper looks to where she’s pointing.

“That’s, uh, Diane. She...was my wife,” Hopper says heavily, looking down at her. The picture is from her 28th birthday, the young Jim Hopper’s arm wrapped around her waist as they smiled at each other. Diane’s hair had been long at that time, the color of honey and soft as silk. Her smile was radiant and glowing, as they’d recently found out that she was pregnant.

El stays quiet for a moment, brow furrowed in thought before she slowly says, “Sara’s mama?”

“Yeah. Sara’s mama.”

“Oh.”

Hopper thinks that’s the end of it, and is about to try and get her to go back to bed, when…

“What happened to her?”

Oh boy. What _didn’t_ happen, would be an easier question to answer. Hopper sighs as El looks up at him. _No more secrets_ , he reminds himself.

“We got divorced,” he says, and then at El’s confused look, “That means we broke up.”

“Why?” El asks, looking hurt, and Hopper can’t for the life of him figure out why.

“I...it’s complicated,” he hedges, praying she leaves it alone. He’s too damn tired to rehash some of the most painful moments of his life.

“Did she hurt you?” El asks, a current of anger in her voice, and Hopper finally gets it. She’s hurt on _his_ _behalf_. The realization fills his heart, and has to make a conscious effort to swallow the sudden lump in his throat.

“No. She didn’t hurt me,” he says finally. “When...when Sara died, I buried myself in my grief, and I just...forgot that she needed me too. I guess, I hurt her.”

God, those months after Sara’s death...it’s all a giant fucking blur, as he’d done his best to spend every waking moment in a drunken stupor. He’d go out to a bar to drink until he stopped hearing Sara’s heart monitor flatline echoing in his head, and come home smelling like a fucking distillery. Honestly, Hopper considers it a miracle that Diane put up with him for as long as she had. But in the end, she’d managed to move on, and he...hadn’t.

“You were broken,” El murmurs. “Just like my mama, when she lost me.”

“Yeah,” Hopper murmurs, pulling El in close. “Just like that.”

“Are you still broken?” she asks softly, and Hopper closes his eyes.

“No. I miss Sara, every day, and I’ll love her til the day I die. But I’m glad I got to spend what little time I had with her. And now, I have you.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey, El?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you need to take a break, sweetie?” Joyce asks her gently, worry in her eyes. El blinks heavily, and only then realizes she’s been dozing off over her books.

“Yes.”

El pushes her books to the side and rubs her eyes tiredly. Joyce goes and gets her a glass of water and El takes it gratefully, drinking it down quickly.

“You wanna go sit on the couch for a bit?”

“Yes.”

They pad over to the sofa, with Joyce immediately opening her arms up to El to pull her in close. El sighs happily, closing her eyes and enjoying the feel of Joyce’s cool hands running through her hair. This is the best part of her day when El gets to spend it with Joyce, just the two of them. Joyce always sets aside some time in the afternoons where they just sit and talk to each other. El...knows that Joyce isn’t her mama; but...she thinks that this must be what having a mama feels like. Having someone that will listen and be patient when she can’t find the right words to say, and doesn’t make her feel bad when that happens. Someone that holds her, and plays with her hair, and if El is lucky, someone that sings lullabies to her.

“You wanna talk about what’s keeping you up at night, honey?” Joyce murmurs quietly, and El frowns slightly. The memories flicker through her mind, refusing to give her any peace while either awake or asleep.

“I...can hear the Mind Flayer sometimes, in my sleep,” El says slowly. “When I’m closing the gate. It screams, like it’s angry at me. Like…”

“Like what, honey?”

“Like it knows who I am,” El says, burying her face in Joyce’s neck.

“It doesn’t know you, El. Hey, look at me,” Joyce says gently, tapping on El’s chin until El lifts up her face to look into Joyce’s eyes.

“It _does not_ know you. That... _thing_ never saw you. It can’t get you,” Joyce says fiercely, and El latches on desperately to the absolute truth in Joyce’s eyes. “You are safe, and there’s no way that Hop and I would let _anything_ bad ever happen to you again, I swear.”

“Swear?”

“It’s like...it’s the same thing as ‘promise’, but stronger,” Joyce says with a nod, as El’s eyes go wide because she hadn’t thought there could be anything stronger than ‘promise’.

But, still. El can’t help the small, dark doubt lingering in her mind. The feeling that this...this _happiness_ is just temporary, and that one day she’ll wake up from this wonderful dream and find herself in the Upside Down. Or worse, in her room at Hawkins Lab.

At least in the Upside Down, she’d still have her freedom, after all.

“Hey, El,” Joyce says, and El’s eyes snap back to hers. “If...and _god forbid_ this actually happen, but _if_ that...that _monster_ ever tried to come back and hurt you in anyway, you know we’d all fight tooth and nail with you, right?”

El blinks in surprise at Joyce’s words. “But, my powers…”

“Your abilities give you an advantage over us, yes,” Joyce starts, still running her hands through El’s hair. “But, that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t fight in some way. I mean, look at Will.”

And yes, El can see that she has a point. Will fought his possession from the Mind Flayer for a _year_ , all on his own. Sometimes, there are days where El thinks that she might not have been able to hold out for so long.

“And then Steve and the kids found a way to fight the Demodogs, too,” Joyce reminds her. “The point is, we all have our own things to contribute. There’s no way we would let you fight by yourself ever again.”

“Not alone,” El murmurs, and Joyce nods.

“Exactly. You’re not alone. You have people that love you, and care about you, and want to help you. Remember that.”

 

* * *

 

Joyce hears Hop knock on the door of the cabin, later that evening. El undoes the locks with her powers, too engrossed in watching her favorite show to even turn around from the TV.

“Good to see you too, kid,” Hopper snorts, dropping a quick kiss on the top of El’s head. She flashes him a quick smile before turning her attention back to the TV, and Hop shakes his head at her. Joyce doesn’t miss the fond smile on his face, however, before Hop lifts his head and spots Joyce in the kitchen.

“Welcome home,” Joyce says with a smile, and an unreadable expression crosses Hop’s face before he hides it, turning to put away his hat and gear away. Joyce blinks in surprise, feeling herself turn slightly red; she hadn’t meant to say it like _that_...but it had slipped out, and it had felt _right_ , somehow.

“Thanks for staying with her,” Hop says quietly when he joins Joyce in the kitchen. Together, they look over at El, who is still watching her show.

“Of course,” Joyce replies. “We had a good day.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She told me what’s been behind her nightmares,” Joyce says, telling him what El had spoken to her about earlier.

Listening to El talk about her fear of the monster that had almost ruined all of their lives, Joyce’s heart had broken for the girl in her arms. She doesn’t know when it happened, whether it was when she had met El for the first time as a small and skinny and frightened child, or when they had reunited, with El holding herself a little more confidently and with less of a shadow in her eyes. But at some point, El has become just as important to Joyce as Will and Jonathan. Joyce supposes she sees some of herself in El, what with the stubbornness streak a mile wide and the glimmer of hope in her eyes that never seems to dim, no matter what the world throws at her.

When Joyce finishes re-telling her conversation with El to Hopper, he slowly sinks into a kitchen chair and scrubs a hand over his weary face. It hits Joyce then, just how tired Hopper looks.

She understands; it’s not easy being a single parent. Add to that, El’s nightmares and the sheer _paranoia_ that Hop must feel, wanting to keep El safe from all of the entities out there that might want to do her harm.

Seeing him hunched over into himself, Joyce has a sudden urge to just go over and pull him into her arms, much like she had done with El earlier on. That feeling is followed by a wave of guilt as a fleeting thought of _Bob_ crosses her mind, and Joyce crosses her arms around herself. _That feeling_ is then followed by a separate wave of guilt because what is there to feel guilty about?

 _Hop is a friend_. Joyce thinks strongly. _Friends comfort friends._

Except...she can’t make herself cross over to Hop’s side. She just _can’t_.

So, miserably, she just watches as Hop slowly pulls himself back together. Finally, he just sighs heavily. “She’s not the only one with nightmares, you know.”

Joyce closes her eyes, pulling her arms around herself tighter. _Of course_ _Hopper has nightmares too._ He stood by El’s side as she closed the gate after all. God only knows Joyce has her fair share of nightmares about Will, and what could have gone wrong. So...why did it never occur to her that Hopper would be suffering as well?

“God, I’m sorry, Hop,” Joyce says bitterly. “I didn’t think…”

“You’ve been dealing with your own shit,” Hop says, not unkindly. “It’s fine.”

“How bad…?”

Hopper lets out a deep sigh as he avoids meeting Joyce’s gaze. “If it’s not me getting torn to pieces by those fucking Demodogs, it’s...The Gate.”

Hopper swallows hard, and swings his gaze back up to meet Joyce’s eyes. She can see the incredible depths of pain in them, not for himself, but for El.

“ _Christ_ , watching El close that gate...it was horrible,” Hopper admits quietly. “There was a moment, when I honestly thought she was going to die. And I…” his voice cracks, and Joyce’s tears start to spill out and run down her face. “I probably would have died with her. ‘Cause I don’t think I would have survived that pain, not again.”

And Joyce suddenly can’t stand being across from Hopper on the other side of the kitchen anymore, not when he so obviously needs someone there, her guilt be damned. So she crosses the kitchen to where Hopper is sitting and pulls him into a fierce hug. It’s a testament to how much he’s hurting that he just wraps his arms around her waist and buries his face in her stomach. She can feel the tremors running through his body, and for a second time that day, Joyce’s heart just _breaks_.

“I’m going to tell you the exact same thing I told El,” Joyce murmurs as she runs her fingers through his hair. “You’re not alone. You have people that love you, and care about you, and want to help you. I’m so sorry that I didn’t notice how badly you were hurting. I promise I won’t do that again. You and I...we’re a team, Hop. For better or for worse.”

She hears him huff a small laugh, his face still buried in her stomach, and Joyce smiles gently down at him. “I promise I’m gonna be there for you, just like you were there for me. Maybe together...we’ll come through this with our minds still in one piece.”

Hopper snorts and finally looks up at her, his eyes red rimmed. “Wishful thinking.”

“You’ll see that I’m right,” Joyce says with a fond smile. “We just have to remember that we’re stronger together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it occurred to me that i should probably get the jopper train rolling along, hope you enjoyed!


	10. day forty four

_day forty four_

“I...don’t think I can do this.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I really don’t think so.”

“Oh my _god_ , pull yourself together, Harrington! Just walk in, hand them the form, and walk out. It’ll take _maybe_ five minutes at most.”

Steve and Jonathan sit in Steve’s car in the parking lot at Hawkins University, the engine running idly as Steve tries to deal with a sudden swell in nausea and nerves. He has no fucking clue why exactly he’s feeling so nervous, now that he’s about to drop off his college application in person. But his hands are sweaty and shaking slightly, and he kinda feels like he’s about to throw up.

“Hey, Steve? Look at me,” Jonathan says, and Steve looks over at him with wide eyes, his breath coming in short spurts. “Okay, Steve? You’re having a panic attack.”

“What?! No, I’m not!” Steve says, even as he’s struggling to catch his breath properly.

“Yes, you are,” Jonathan says soothingly. “Will has them all the time, I know what it looks like. I need you to open your car door so you can get some fresh air.”

“Can you _please_ stop talking to me like I’m a kid?” Steve grumbles, but nonetheless opens his door. The cold winter air hits him square in the face, and it helps, somehow.

“Okay, good. Now, take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, and breathe out slowly.”

Steve does as Jonathan tells him, and together, the boys sit there for about ten minutes, with Steve doing his breathing exercises and Jonathan walking him through it in a low, steady voice. And before long, Steve can feel his chest loosening and his breath coming in easier.

He thumps his head back against his headrest, closing his eyes so that Jonathan doesn’t see the sudden prick of tears in his eyes as he tries to pull himself together again. God, he _hates_ feeling so...so _powerless_ , like this.

“I-it’s...okay, Steve,” he hears Jonathan say softly and slowly, before he feels Jonathan’s warm hand land tentatively on his hand, still clenched in a fist. “You got nervous. Shit happens.”

“Not to me, it doesn’t,” Steve mutters darkly. “I don’t even know why the hell I’m so fucking scared of dropping off a stupid application.”

“It’s because it’s important to you,” Jonathan replies. “This is something you actually want to do.”

“Yeah, well, just because I want this doesn’t mean I’ll actually _get_ it,” Steve says, finally opening his eyes to look at Jonathan.

Jonathan sighs softly. “You won’t know until you try, though, right? If you don’t get in, well...okay then. We’ll figure something out.”

“We?” Steve can’t help but ask, and watches as Jonathan flushes and looks down. It does something to Steve to watch Jonathan, that has Steve smiling gently and reaching out to tap Jonathan on his chin until he finally lifts his gaze again.

“Thanks,” Steve says quietly. “For all of it.”

“Welcome,” Jonathan murmurs. “Besides, that application is basically half mine, too.”

Steve chuckles; it’s true, though. Jonathan had been a big help to Steve, what with helping him write his essay and helping him get good recommendations from a few of Steve’s teachers.

“Just a practice run for when you fill out your applications,” Steve says, ignoring the twist in his stomach at his own words. He knows that Jonathan wants to go to NYU, and Steve _knows_ that Jonathan will get in, hands down. It’s just...a little far away, is all.

Jonathan huffs a small laugh. “Okay, look, I have an idea. Why don’t we just walk around the campus for a while? It’ll clear your head, and help you calm down. And it’ll help you to start to get a feel for the school, and where everything is.”

Steve blows out a breath slowly. His panic attack _has_ subsided, but he’s still feeling kinda jittery. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

Their boots crunch along through the fresh snow outside, courtesy of last night’s snowstorm. The campus itself is fairly empty; Steve’s pretty sure that finals are still underway, and that those that are done have already gone home for winter break.

The campus itself is the perfect size, not too big and not too small. Steve...can _actually_ picture himself here, comfortable in a way that he never was in high school.

“Feeling a little better?” Jonathan asks, and Steve glances over at him. Jonathan has his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, and his face tilted to the sky, a small smile playing on his lips.

“Yeah, actually. Thanks.”

Suddenly, a particularly frigid blast of wind blows past the boys. Steve watches as Jonathan hunches into himself, and he realizes that Jonathan only has a ratty jacket on in the middle of December.

Steve frowns. “Dude, you’re gonna get sick.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jonathan mutters, and it slowly dawns on Steve. Jonathan doesn’t actually _have_ a winter coat.

Steve doesn’t even think about it; he pulls off the thick cashmere scarf he has on, and offers it to Jonathan.

“Here.”

“I—what?”

“Put the scarf on,” Steve says patiently, and Jonathan hesitates. Steve knows for sure that the only thing keeping Jonathan from accepting is his pride, so with a roll of his eyes, Steve takes the initiative and steps in front of Jonathan to loop the scarf around his neck.

“There! And when you don’t die of pneumonia, you can thank...me…later...,” Steve trails off when he looks up from the scarf, and realizes _exactly_ how close he’s standing to Jonathan.

It’s then that Steve really notices Jonathan’s sharp jawline, outlined in the sunshine, and the curve of his nose, the long line of his neck, the sweep of his hair…

Oh. _Oh_. Well then.

So. Steve’s attracted to Jonathan. That’s new.

 

* * *

 

All Jonathan has to do is take one more step, and lean forward a little bit, and he’d be kissing Steve.

But that’s crazy, right? That...is the craziest idea that Jonathan’s _ever_ had.

Except…

Steve hasn’t moved away from him. He’s still holding on to the scarf, and still staring at him with wide brown eyes. And Jonathan isn’t imagining this...this _charge_ in the air, like something _important_ is going to happen. Jonathan hasn’t taken his eyes off of Steve, so he notices when, for the _tiniest_ microsecond, Steve’s eyes flicker to his lips and back up.

And suddenly, Jonathan _wants_ this to happen, he can almost feel it happening. And all he does is tilt his head just slightly, and Steve instinctively follows, and they’re so close that Jonathan can feel Steve’s breath on his lips and _then_ …

A loud burst of girls’ laughter has Jonathan and Steve hastily stepping away from each other, both boys taking deep breaths. He looks over and there’s a group of girls walking out of one of the nearby buildings, chattering and laughing away at each other, not having noticed the boys standing a few feet away from them.

Jonathan swings his gaze back to Steve, who is just standing there looking with uncertainty at him. Okay, so. Jonathan almost kissed Steve Harrington. That...that is going to take some time to process.

“W-we should get to the registrar’s office, before they close,” Jonathan blurts out, and watches as Steve takes a minute to pull himself back together again, before nodding in agreement.

The boys quickly and quietly walk to the registrar’s office, each lost in his own thoughts. Jonathan doesn’t even know where to start, honestly.

The thing is, he still loves Nancy. Like, he’s head over heels in love, would do anything for her. And sure, her breaking up with him had hurt, but Jonathan had understood. She needed time to sort out her feelings about the two of them, and to figure out what exactly she wanted. Both he and Steve had agreed to give her some space and to not pressure her.

But this...this is an unexpected twist.

Jonathan has never felt this way about another guy before. Hell, before Nancy, he hadn’t felt this way about _anyone_.

And of all people, it had to be Steve? Their relationship is the dictionary definition of ‘complicated’. They went from beating the shit out of each other in back alleys, to fighting supernatural creatures together, to...whatever the hell that was that just happened a moment ago.

Steve stops in his tracks suddenly, and Jonathan almost trips.

“What?” Jonathan asks him, before he realizes that they’re at the registrar’s office. He turns to look back at Steve, who is back to being pale as a sheet.

“Hey. Look at me,” Jonathan says, reaching out to grip Steve’s shoulder. “Where’s that reckless, brave idiot that throws himself headfirst into danger, huh?”

Steve huffs a small laugh, but still looks a little panicked. “Apparently he checked out.”

“No, he didn’t,” Jonathan says easily. “Just cause this ‘monster’ doesn’t have claws or sharp teeth and isn’t actively trying to kill you, doesn’t mean that it isn’t just another obstacle you have to overcome.”

“Easy for you to say,” Steve says with a sigh. “I’m not like you or Nan—,”

Steve cuts himself off quickly with a curse, and runs his hands through his hair.

“What? You’re not like me and Nancy?” Jonathan asks with a frown. “What’s that mean?”

“It means—,” Steve starts before blowing out a frustrated breath. “It means that I’m not good enough, like you guys are; I’m not smart enough or talented enough at _anything_. I have no fucking clue what I even want to do with my life. So what if all of _this_ is a giant mistake? What if I can’t do it?”

Steve’s arms are crossed tightly across his chest and his shoulders are hunched in defensively. Jonathan sighs deeply, before reaching over to gently uncross Steve’s arms.

“Look. The fact that you’re standing here worrying about all of that means that you _want_ this, and that you’re willing to dedicate yourself to this. Steve, you’re eighteen, for god's sakes. It’s no big deal if you don’t know what you want to do with your life yet! That’s literally what college is for, to help you find your path in life,” Jonathan says, gesturing wildly with his arms.

“And don’t give me that bullshit about you not being smart or talented or whatever. You’re plenty smart, and you’re one of the hardest workers I know. You’re Steve fucking Harrington; now get in there and give them your application so we can go home!”

Jonathan shoves Steve towards the door, Steve looking back at him with wide, surprised eyes. Finally, Steve nods and gives him a grateful smile before taking a deep breath and walking into the building.

Later, when they’re driving back home, Jonathan asks him, “So, how do you feel?”

“Like myself again,” Steve says with a sigh of relief. “Honestly, between the shit that went down with Will and the fucking Demodogs, and then with...with Nancy,” Steve says with a wince. “And motherfucking _Billy_...I don’t know, man. Just felt like the universe was taking a crap on me or something.”

Jonathan snorts, but he gets the idea. “And now?”

“I mean you were right; I still have no clue what I want to do or study, but…this was a step in the right direction. And ultimately, I-I want...to…,” Steve trails off, mumbling the last sentence, but Jonathan hears him anyway.

_He wants to do something that makes the kids proud of him._

And god, if that doesn’t make Jonathan like Steve even more.

“They’re already proud of you,” Jonathan says with a soft smile. “You fought off literal monsters for them, it doesn’t get much more impressive than that for kids.”

“Point,” Steve says with a wry grin.

“And they’re not the only ones,” Jonathan says quietly, and Steve glances over at him in surprise. Jonathan prays that the flush on his face isn’t as noticeable as it feels.

Finally, Steve gives him a smile that has Jonathan warm all over. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

Nancy hums quietly under her breath as she unlocks the Byers’ front door, with the spare key that they keep hidden on the porch. She’s got a small smile on her face, and a slight bounce in her step, and for the first time in months...Nancy feels _happy_.

It had been a good day at work. A great day, actually. Maria had talked to Nancy about getting her started on fieldwork.

( _“As much as I appreciate you getting me coffee and doing my paperwork, Wheeler,” Maria had drawled, “I have to admit, you have the makings of a good journalist.”_

_“Wha—seriously?” Nancy had asked incredulously._

_“Yeah. You’re sharp, eager, and stubborn as hell. Journalists need to be stubborn, or we’d never get a story,” Maria had said with a shrug. “And honestly, your talents are being wasted right now.”_

_“I—wow,” Nancy had said, floored at the high praise from her boss. “I don’t know what to say.”_

_“I was thinking, how would you feel about shadowing some of the journos while they’re out in the field? Get a feel for what the job is really like. And who knows, it might just be something that you’d be interested in pursuing in the future.”_ )

So yeah. A _very_ good day.

The house is quiet as Nancy walks through and heads to the kitchen, only broken by faint, murmuring noises. She pokes her head into the Byers’ kitchen, and smiles at Will, El, and Mike. They have their heads bent intently over their books, as they help El work through some of their old assignments.

Honestly, with how quickly they’ve watched as El has absorbed and retained all of the new material, it’s clear to everyone that her mind is brilliant. She’s not at genius level, or anything like that, but it’s infuriating to realize that Brenner had intentionally kept her uneducated beyond a basic, rudimentary baseline of knowledge. Still, Nancy thinks, she believes that El wouldn’t be doing as well as she is, if it wasn’t for the help of her friends. The other kids have completely dedicated themselves to bringing El’s education up to their level, and with their help, it’s looking like it’s entirely possible that she’ll test well into their grade next year.

Satisfied that the kids aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, Nancy goes in search of Jonathan to relieve him of babysitting duties.

“Jonathan?” Nancy calls out quietly, knocking on his slightly ajar door. “Sorry I’m a little late, I just got out of work—,”

She stops suddenly, when she realizes that that’s not Jonathan laying on his bed.

“Oh. Steve. Um, hi,” she says awkwardly with an inward wince. Steve looks up in surprise at her.

“Uh, hey, Nance,” Steve says after a moment.

Neither of them says anything else for a bit, and Nancy can feel the guilt that she’s been living with for the past few months crawl all over her and settle back in, like a familiar, suffocating blanket.

“I, uh, didn’t realize it was your turn to watch them,” Nancy finally says, inclining her head in the kids direction.

“Oh, uh, no, Jonathan just got called in to work a shift last minute, and I offered to keep an eye on the little terrors ‘til you got here.”

Nancy can’t help but crack a small smile at Steve’s sideways jab at the kids. They’re all well aware that for all of the bitching and moaning between Steve and the kids, he’s fiercely loyal to them now, and vice versa.

She feels like she should tell him that it’s okay to leave now, but he’s still laying splayed on Jonathan’s bed, and he looks _so_ comfortable in his bed like he _belongs_ there. The sight of him sends a sudden flash of heat through Nancy, and she shakes her head minutely to pull herself together because she really doesn’t want to examine that too closely.

“You look nice, by the way,” Steve murmurs, turning his head to avoid her gaze when she looks at him in surprise. She sees the tips of his ears turn red, and butterflies erupt in her stomach.

“Thank you,” she says, shyly ducking her head. Nancy bites her lip in contemplation, before deciding to toe off her shoes before padding over to sit on the bed next to him.

Steve shuffles over to make room for her, and she carefully lays down next to him, while still keeping a good distance between them. For a while, they don’t say anything at all. Nancy just stares at the ceiling and tries to block out all of the noise in her head, all centered around two boys that she still loves with every beat of her heart.

The feeling of Steve’s solid presence lying next to her, warm and comforting, along with Jonathan’s scent all around her, has Nancy finally relaxing into the mattress with a small sigh.

“I just applied to Hawkins U,” Steve says quietly, and Nancy inclines her head to look over at him. He’s still staring straight ahead at the ceiling, and Nancy has an incredible urge to reach over and lay her hand against his cheek. Instead, she laces her hands together tightly over her stomach.

“T-that’s good!” she says, mustering up a bright smile. She ignores the ache in her heart because she hadn’t even _known_ that Steve had wanted to go there. There’s probably a lot of things that she doesn’t know about him anymore; and it’s her fault.

“Yeah,” Steve sighs. “Close to home, and cheaper too, y’know?”

“Mm,” Nancy hums in agreement.

They lay in silence again, both staring back up at the ceiling, maybe less than a foot of space between them. To Nancy, it feels like miles of distance.

She turns her head to look at Steve, and he does the same. God, she used to spend hours looking into his clear, brown eyes, looking for god knows what. His hair falls gently over his forehead, and she clenches her hands tighter together so that she doesn’t do something stupid, like reach over to brush it away from his eyes.

“What happened to us, Nance?” Steve finally asks quietly, and the heartbreak in his eyes and in his voice has tears springing to Nancy’s eyes.

“I fucked up,” she says bitterly, jaw clenched to keep from just breaking down like she really wants to do.

Steve shakes his head. “No, _we_ fucked up. Takes two to tango.”

“You didn’t cheat on me, Steve.”

“No, I didn’t. I just closed my eyes and ignored all of the problems in our relationship,” Steve says with a downward twist of his mouth. “I wanted to believe that we were perfect and happy and untouchable, when we really weren’t. And in the end, it made us more miserable than ever.”

Steve tentatively reaches his hand out in her direction, and Nancy finally unclenches her hands and reaches back out to tangle their fingers together. It feels like coming home, and she doesn’t try to stop a stray tear from falling from the corner of her eye.

“I think we expected a little too much from each other,” Nancy admits quietly.

“Yeah,” Steve sighs. “I think so.”

“So, where does that leave us now, then?”

Steve chews on his lower lip for a bit, and Nancy clenches their hands together tighter.

“You know,” he finally says slowly. “We never did try to be just friends.”

Nancy blinks slowly, her brain trying to process his words.

“Mm, in my defense, you were a little too busy trying to get into my pants,” she finally says with a small smile, and Steve huffs a small laugh.

“Fair enough,” he says. “Look, Nance, I forgave you a while ago for what you did with…”

Steve trails off, waving his hand around Jonathan’s room. “It wouldn’t be fair to forgive him and not you.”

Nancy sniffs and wipes away more tears with her free hand. She’d never thought that she would be able to hear those words from him.

“And honestly? I just got tired of being mad at you. It’s exhausting, being pissed all of the time,” Steve says with a sigh. “We both know that we fucked up, we both apologized...can we just...move on?”

“Yeah, yeah, I-I’d like that,” Nancy says with a watery smile. _Friends_. Okay, yeah. She can do that; she’d rather have him in her life in some fashion, rather than not at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEADCANON: Jonathan comes home after a late shift and collapses in his bed and it smells like Steve AND Nancy and he has no idea why but who cares 'cause he's too goddamn tired to think too much about it and he ends up falling asleep with a smile on his face and !!!!
> 
> guys, why is writing for an OT3 so hard??
> 
> thanks for all the continued love and support, guys! let me know how you're feeling about the story so far!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for all the love and support, it means the world <3  
> come cry with me about all our stranger babies on tumblr!
> 
> [argenttmccall.tumblr.com](https://argenttmccall.tumblr.com)


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